This direction may seemed like I am sending you on a trip through the woods to Grandma's house, but it will be a trip well spent and you will be very blessed by it. Go onto Youtube, get yourself a user name if you have not already. I think it may have an affiliation with Yahoo so that may be the same user name there. Anyway, you need to have a user name and be signed on in order to contact a Youtube user. Check out bonzoleum and all the vids that he has. His name is Terry Keating and he is a Paiste enthusiast. He has alot of Paiste vids on there that serve as Paiste tutorials (can practically be considered "Paiste class"). It is quite easy to just listen to him for hours talk about Paiste.

Anyway, search for 505 in his vids and listen to those vids. Eventually, after enjoying some of those vids, send him a message through Youtube. He may take a while, but he WILL get back to you with the answer on this question.

I know that is quite an involved solution, but you will definitely be blessed by it!

I dig the 404s and 505s!

John

The first digit of the six digit serial number is the last digit of the year, example:

550810 would be 85, as the 505's were made in the 80's. Those without are early 80's. Wiki Paiste and it gives a good reference of serial, but I know that 6 digit 505's are 80's, as are 6 digit 2002's from the 70's

The Paiste time that I looked at showed that they made the black label 505`s from 74 thru 79 also. Green labels were 80 to 85.

Yes, you're correct. They did make 505's as a black label and with no serial numbers. The are just like the Black label 2002 stamp, but with 505 instead of 2002

Thanks for the info! I was not aware that the black label 505`s did not have serial numbers. I have only seen a pic of the 505 stamp and that one was German made cymbal.

Some 505's in the [COLOR="Green"]Green Label[/COLOR] era snuck through without serials. A member of the Paiste Forum has found more than a few like that.