Looks 1960s. See: http://black.net.nz/avedis/avedis-gallery.html#60s

I'd be interested in knowing the height of that stamp. You will see that there is a height difference between the early and later 60s, according to Bill Hartrick (who did the original research to establish the timeline). Since I last updated the gallery text I believe I've found another stamp attribute which may useful for distinguishing 1950s from 1960s from 1970s, and knowing the height of yours might help see if my new attribute might be useful or useless. It could go either way at this point...another beautiful hypothesis slain by an ugly fact.

Hello.....Thanks for your info and interest. I have just taken a couple of pics. If you want better detail i shall take more in the day light...The weight of the cymbal is 2150 grams.Its a lovely ride and crash well looked after sort of thinking to sell on ebay not sure..sean

Thanks for the extra pics. That looks to me like 1 3/16" rather than the 1.5" size. So early 1960s. 2150g is a nice weight for a 20"

Does that fit roughly with the age of the kit? I confess to ignorance about the dates for Premier kits. We have plenty of vintage ones here in New Zealand, but I don't know much about them. And the moonfruit site is a pig to navigate, at least in my browser. I came across a 303 in the 1972 entry, but I don't know when they started and finished.

The Premier kit i have just bought is The B303 22x17 12x8 14x8 16x16 with a Hi Fi 14x5 1/2 snare plus lokfast hardware. The finish was special order WMP. Im cleaning it up the kit is in top condition. As a note a Premier 303 kit is with 20" bass drum and a B303 kit is with a 22"bass drum. The pic ive posted is from the 1975 catalogue. The guy that owned it passed away 2 yrs ago and looked after it like a child.....Sean.

Ive measured it exactly 1 3/16" is exact. Also it is 2 7/8" from edge of cymbal.

Steve been meaning to thank you for making the Zlidjian guide. Pretty cool and helps a lot dating them. Zildjian stamps have been somewhat of a mystery to me and your site really shed some light for me thanks!

Thanks Glenn.

It's a defensive move so we don't have to keep posting the same answers over and over again. It still isn't anywhere near finished (barely a North American K in sight ;) ), but it is coming along. I'm glad it is helpful.

I don't mean to sound like a know-it-all here, cuz I'm not, but other than the stamp, the weight and sound would clue me on the date period. Just in careful observation, I've noticed the 50's & early 60's tend to be lighter weight and seem to have a certain sound to them. Late 60's thru 70's I think tended to be heavier and the sound seemed to change.

Also, I look at the lathing. Later cymbals seem to be more evenly lathed. Zildjian implemented a "no beer at lunch" policy around 1967.

I could be TOTALLY wrong on all that, so feel free to clue me in if so.

I agree with all your observations. I just didn't get to them because in this case identification by the trademark stamp alone was enough to do the job. But now that you have opened the floodgates...

If you read here and there on my site you will find discussion of lathing changes which fits with your observations. But it is somewhat hidden away in the New Beats history page for now. I haven't seen 1967 as a specific date before for the changes in lathing. Have you done some research and isolated 1967? Based on what sort of sample size? How do you identify the precise year of a cymbal from the mid 60s? How does this change correlate with bottom hammering dropping out (as Bill Hartrick aka Drumaholic has observed)? And how do these lathing changes correlate with the arrival of the taller version of the 60s stamp? These are the sorts of questions I'm asking all the time in order to assess the strength of evidence for certain claims. It is nothing personal, I'm just trying to lift our game.

The weight changes are somewhat anecdotal at this time as far as I have observed. Again, when I began my New Beats weight study I thought I would be able to document the linear increase in weight decade by decade but I discovered it isn't so simple. However, I haven't finished the full analysis yet so it isn't written up. It isn't that I don't believe in any changes. But I need a bit more beef on my cymbal weights. ;)

I do have an observation (from John King, veteran Zildjian cymbal tester) that current (pre 2013 reset of weights) weight bands for 22" A Zildjian are: 2720-3200g medium; less is light, more is ping. And I know if you compare these to our expectation of weights for 1980s and 1960s and 1950s it may look like the categories crept up a notch. But I also see lots of mid 1950s (usually Hollow Blocks) since they are the easiest of the 3 Large Stamps to spot, which are up in the 2700-2800g range. Yes they don't sound like modern ones. But is there significant weight change? Or are the differences more likely to be morphology and manufacturing technology than just weight?

Once the weight changes are properly documented there is also the question of when changes happened, and did they happen in some gradual way or were there step changes? There still seem to be plenty of "lighter" cymbals in the 70s (dated by the hollow font ink Zildjian underneath). Given the number of late 50s small stamp cymbals I see misidentified as 1970s ones I'm waiting for much higher quality reporting of actual weights combined with reliable identifications before I feel comfortable with the weight ;) of evidence. No question weights changed, but just when and by how much? And is the weight change significant taking into account the natural variability in weights (way too often ignored in favor of some "ideal type"). Dunno.