That's B20 that's written there. It is in reference to the alloy used for that cymbal. B20 is good stuff, so that's nice. It looks like the HH is one of the very early cymbals from Sabian. Nice hammering. Don't fret about the comparison. There is a chance that the man that hammered that cymbal had something to do with those old K's. LOTs of artisan connections there. Especially since both companies are owned by members of the Zildjian family. The hats are odd. It looks like Sabian provided the bronze for another manufacturer. Just a guess, though. Someone more in the know will step in and fill in the blanks. Nice 19!!! I would imagine that you would not want to part with it.......but if you should........I'm Michael.

Haha. Not a chance... I use that thing as my main ride 90% of the time. Thanks for the info though, can't wait to find out more.

Those hats labeled "B20" are entry-level hats that Sabian sold under their name in the early 1980s. I believe that the hats were made in Italy by Tosco for Sabian.

[COLOR="DarkRed"]IV's got it mostly right.

Sabian bought the Italian maker Tosco out. They ran about another year or two of production in Italy before closing that plant altogether.

I believe they continued the Tosco-line name in Canada for a few more years, but they dumbed 'em down to beginner/budget cymbals.

HOWEVER...these B20 by Sabians are NOT budget/low-line cymbals made in CA. They didn't change the Tosco formula and workmanship, they more or less just 're-branded' the cymbals with their own name...these are very good, B20 alloy Italian-crafted cymbals. I have a slew of these sabian-Toscos. I would argue that, actually, they are better than the B20 stuff Sabian was producing early on.

You will see 2 versions of these. The earliest versions were, I glean, cymbals which were already made and just lyin' there in the Tosco factory at teh time of the buyout....they had already been logo'ed with their familiar and usual black-ink "Tosco" logos...so Sabian just made an ink stamp which read "by Sabian" and stamped it below the Tosco logo. That's what these say. TOSCO by Sabian. You can even see it's 2 separate logos next to each other. Funny...

Yours, Rusty, are the ones which wer made at the Tosco factory after the takeover, so they removed the Tosco name completely from them and just called 'em B20 by Sabian. Perhaps this was when the shifted the Tosco name to the budget line (?) But just looking at those pics, without even seeing the "made in Italy" stamp...it was already a dead giveaway that these are handmade Italians.

It is sort of a shame that they gobbled up the entire Italian company...and more a shame that, as a result of using the name for a dumbed-down line of cymbals, the Tosco name has been associated with middlin'-quality cymbals ever since. But I guess that's what happened over there in that time...Tosco disappeared, taken over by Sabian... and Zanki disappeared, folding into UFIP....because they couldn't compete any longer as their own entities.

If they were made in Italy (as these were)...they are quite good.

The HH is just a very early Sabian HH...they had different logos back then...[/COLOR]