It will absolutely sound "normal" whatever that is. The small holes for the rivets will not materially affect the overall sound But that's no guaranty the cymbal will sound good to you. The sound may not have been to your liking, holes or not. Since you say you've never heard a cymbal in person with rivets, understand that their purpose was to supply additional sustain especially with brushes and sticks in lower volume acoustical ensembles, and especially for jazz. They are great for ballads. Back in the day, people sometimes added them to less than desirable cymbals hoping they would improve the sound. They won't. A lousy sounding cymbal will sound as lousy with or without rivets. Hopefully this cymbal is not one of those.

The lathing on the bell and bow suggests 1950s to me. Given just this one photo I'd expect late 50s:

http://black.net.nz/avedis/avedis-gallery.html#small << click to see

But it could also be mid 50s:

http://black.net.nz/avedis/avedis-gallery.html#large << click to see

and it could be a late 50s produced cymbal with a 60s stamp:

http://black.net.nz/avedis/avedis-gallery.html#60s << click to see

However, the lathing isn't a prefect predictor of what stamp might be on it. You should be able to tell when it gets there.

Hope you enjoy it.

thanks for the info guys...I really appreciate it! That would be very cool if it is as old as the 50's! I will take some closeup pics when I get the cymbal...which will hopefully be later this week.

I'm eager to see the underside... A drummer buddy had an 18" Zildjian sizzle signed by Buddy Rich in the late 70's. He got out of drumming soon after, and sold the set without mentioning the provenance. So now, whenever I see one of these, I've gotta wonder where that damn cymbal is, and who might have wiped the signature clean!

Got the cymbal...sounds great! I don't care for sizzles so I took the two it had out and love it! I have a couple pics...does the logo pinpoint a date of make? Thanks!

That's a 1960's stamp.

And based on the quirk pattern it's the short one.

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

Cool, nice to know! I have some hi-hats that have a similar stamp...what do you think?

Yes that has the same quirks, so it should be the same die used. Not all the quirks show equally deeply on all impressions. We think that has to do with variations in the pressure of the stamp pressing machine.