I'm not sure how deep your question goes. Have you read up on the differences which Bill Hartrick (Drumaholic) originally documented? If not then you might want to jump into the middle of things and just start here:

http://black.net.nz/avedis/avedis-gallery.html#60s

In the strictest interpretation, the stamped in trademark which appears on a cymbal tells you which stamp was applied to it rather than precisely what year it was manufactured.

There are plenty of cymbals which have production clues (hammering style and lathing style and bell morphology) from one era and a trademark die stamp from a later era.

Cymbals were hammered and lathed and then left to rest in the vault, sometimes for 7 or more years. When they were picked by testers to fill an order then they received ink stamps and the die stamped trademark was pressed in. At least that's what Leon Chiappini says about the process, and he was in charge.

But we tend to drop all those distinctions and just say "that's a 60s cymbal" when it has a 60s stamp. And yes, the die stamp on the 26" appears to be a 60s stamp (answering the original question). However, I still can't rule out Bill Hartrick identifying it as a 1954 stamp because I don't know what he looks for to uniquely identify a 1954 stamp from the die stamp alone:

http://www.vintagedrumforum.com/showthread.php?t=16096&highlight=1954

If you show us a photo of your cymbal we can comment on it. Other than that, it's hard to say whether you are seeing all the distinctions I've tried to document which contrast different production eras. You also need to remember that you may have purchased brand new cymbals in a retail shop in the late 1970s which were manufactured in the early 1960s but were in the supply line in the intervening years.

The current record for number of years in the supply line goes to a late 1930s/early 40s cymbal purchased new in the 1970s. That's 3 decades in the supply line:

http://www.vintagedrumforum.com/showthread.php?t=53314

Cool, thanks for that. That was the same conclusion I came to upon researching it, but I'm not so into old A's and don't have a great eye for the stamps.

With better quality pictures of the lathing and visible hammering I might be able to say a bit more about production era. As in the sort of exchange which unfolded here:

http://www.vintagedrumforum.com/showthread.php?t=54207

The pics of the cymbal on your kit aren't big enough to really say much about hammering and lathing. Bigger and better ones might reveal something interesting.

Here are some more photos

Nothing really jumps out at me as "must be 50s" from the additional photos, but I might be overlooking something which somebody else can see. I see a little bit of lathe chatter (second photo), but while that is more common in the 50s than the 60s it happens in both decades. And yes the distance between tonal grooves is a bit variable, but again this isn't out of the range of variation I've seen for 1960s cymbals.

If we were lucky and Drumaholic (Bill Hartrick) showed up, he might give us more info on what he can see.

The only other issue to follow up is the mounting hole size. It looks like it might have started out as a 7/16" hole rather than a 1/2" (modern size) hole. You can read up on that here: http://black.net.nz/avedis/holes.html

Not to advertise my lack of knowledge, but why doesn't this stamp indicate a mid-fifties Hollow Block .... ??

Thanks

The differences I use to tell this mid 50s HB:

[img]http://black.net.nz/avedis/images/22-2815-stamp.jpg[/img]

from this version of the 60s stamp:

[img]http://black.net.nz/avedis/images/15-914-short-60s-rule.jpg[/img]

are written up on my site like this:

I'm sure there are some other subtle differences but I haven't looked for them yet because I don't have trouble telling the two stamps apart with reasonable accuracy. Of course, the true test is the hammering and lathing. That's the key distinction between a cymbal manufactured in the mid 1950s and one manufactured in the 1960s.

** edit ** swapped to bigger image for HB to make comparison easier. And in terms of other subtle differences compare the distance between the dot dot dash dash, the AVEDIS, and the ZILDJIAN. To me it looks like the AVEDIS is nicely in the middle of the vertical spacing in the HB stamp. Compare this spacing with that shown in the 60s (and in the stamp pic from the 26" cymbal)

[img]http://www.vintagedrumforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=94473&d=1453425548[/img]

and you will see that the AVEDIS appears a little closer to the ZILDJIAN. Note I haven't checked this distinction against the 160 of so examples of HBs and 60s stamps I have in my reference collection. If it holds up then it will get added to my site. Another telltale is that the I in avedIs seems to taper downwards to a point in the 60s version -- or to be more correct in at least one of the 3 or more 60s versions.

If others don't see this distinction then do chime in. I like to focus on distinctions which are practical for others to judge, and stand up to replication in larger samples. Contrary views help improve the quality of the interpretation.

Right off the bat, the lathing goes across both the font and center of ZILDJIAN Co in the top pic, the bottom one is impressed and no lathing goes across the font because it`s indented. If you were to look at the tool used to stamp it , you would see a thick lettering on one, and a raised negative on the other.

I never noticed that till just now reading this post.

Now I can tell the difference with block letters and thick font.

You quoted my post before I added a second difference: Another telltale is that the I in avedIs seems to taper downwards to a point in the 60s version -- or to be more correct in at least one of the 3 or more 60s versions. Actually several of the letters in AVEDIS do that.

I've built up a checklist set of perhaps 20-25 distinctions among the different stamps beyond "the three dots". What I haven't done yet is fully document that list (in annotated pictures) and tested every potential distinction against my full reference collection.

I've always maintained that it isn't hard to tell these die stamps apart if you have the proper documentation. We've just suffered from woefully inadequate documentation. But the proof of the pudding will be when people can use my site and reach the right identification without having to ask here.