I need help with this 14" cymbal I just acquired. It has what I think is a small late 50s stamp but a rather unusual hammering. I thought only the earlier trans stamp era had this hammering. Besides it is rather heavy with 1246 gr
I have a pair of small stamp hats (691 gr / 818 gr) so the extra bottom is a nice addition ( New Beat style).
my question is : is this weight unusual for the era, the hammering ?
Appears to have the 50's stamp. And I agree with your assessment on the hammering. Look much like my pre trans stamp models. And many from that earlier period were heavy. They can sound very musical though.
Mike
A Trixon stamped one. I've documented what little I have on the Trixon stamp here:
http://black.net.nz/avedis/Trixon.html
Also, I'd love to see a picture of the top as well to check out the lathing and hammering on that side.
Yes that looks to be a late 50s small stamp. The hammering on the bottom looks more
late 40s early 50s <<- click for examples
than
30 to early 40s <<- click for examples
to me, but we're talking subtle matters of interpretation. I'm still not able to produce a reproducible classification system which everybody can use. The combination of hammering (and lathing) from one era plus a trademark stamp from a later era isn't that common, but it happens. I've found it in maybe 1-2% of pre 1982 A Zildjian cymbals, although I need to do a more accurate re-assessment of the rate now that I've got lots more data. Pre 1982 because there was a factory change after that which ended the potential long wait time in the vault between manufacture and trademark/ink stamping. These examples of "time lag" cymbals may explain the otherwise anomalous 1954 stamp. The sort of "time lags" we are talking about are 7 years in the vault before being selected to fill an order. Not many stayed in the vault that long, but a few did.
A weight like 1246g suggests it is a band or marching cymbal weight to me. Just the sort of cymbal which players used to pair up with a medium top (700g - 800g would be the order of the day) to create their own New Beat style hats. This was adopted by Zildjian in 1963 or so because it was already popular and they were listening to what drummers wanted. The grand overview of more than 5 decades of hats:
[img]http://black.net.nz/avedis/images/A14-top-by-bot.png[/img]
is taken from my pricing and weight work:
http://black.net.nz/avedis/avedis-prices.html#14
and the info there tells a bit more about some of the unusual hat pairings which are circled.
thanks for the replies !!! I have attached 2 more pictures, showing the top and bell. Having the Trixon stamp this cymbal might have been sold with a Trixon and not as a band or marching cymbal. Also due to the economic situation I wonder which marching band in Germany would have been able to afford a Zildjian.
