Awesome, thanks again! All good info and helpful. I'll keep an eye out for that elusive 21" medium ride to add to my kit.

Oh yeah, I should point out that there may be other differences between Rock Ride and Medium Ride. There is the degree of curvature of the bow (aka profile) and there is how much the metal gets thinner as you more towards the edge (taper). Higher bow = higher pitch, thinner edge = better crash (other things being equal -- which they never are). The there is a possible flange on the outer edge. That doesn't mean a Pang or a Sabian Sound Control flange which is fairly obvious. It can be much more subtle and just represent a change of angle at the outer edge of the cymbal. There are lots of factors which go into the mix. I've got equipment to measure these things, but I haven't got any 21" A Zildjian cymbals with model ink on them. Weight and bell diameter are less informative of model than a more complete set of measurements, but it is all we've got for now.

Originally Posted by zenstat

No need. It's a 6" bell all right. I've done a quick comparison of the diameter of the bell in the photo from the top (45mm) and the overall diameter (153mm). Knowing those two plus the real diameter of 21" you can calculate the bell diameter: 6"

It's usually easy enough (and accurate enough) to pick a 6" from a 5" bell even when the exact edge of the bell is hard to spot. A cross check is that the mounting hole is 1/2" and appears as 3.5mm on the photo.

I occasionally have an uncertain outcome when trying to pick a 5" bell vs a 5.5" bell if the edge of the bell is hard to spot. The 5.5" bell is also a little higher than the 5" which helps if you have the cymbals in front of you. But that doesn't work from photos.

I'm slowly building up data on which diameter cymbals (and which models) have which bells. There was a common core of 5 different bells at one point (60s?) but since the 80s (or is it more like 90s?) a few more bell dies have been created. Paul Francis has provided some of the specific info on those and in some cases they were actually cloned from much older cymbals.

Unfortunately for the current discussion, what I'm not sure of at the moment is whether that 6" bell die was in use on the 21" Medium Ride in the 60s and 70s.

Hi Zen - I just remeasured the bell on my 21" A and it is in fact a 5.5 inch bell. It definitely stands quite high - it is quite noticeable.

Black Label,
We may have clones!

Zenstat,
Please confirm that this is a 60's A with the attached photo. The measurements as promised are; diameter 21 1/8" and the bell is 5 1/2" (measured underside).

Originally Posted by woody1953

Black Label,
We may have clones!

Zenstat,
Please confirm that this is a 60's A with the attached photo. The measurements as promised are; diameter 21 1/8" and the bell is 5 1/2" (measured underside).

Yes that's a 60s trademark stamp. And it looks like I need to add 5.5" to my list of bell diameters for 21" cymbals, thanks to you and Erik. I also need to write up a page on bell diameters presenting what I've got. This link is to an out of date list (and a 22" mid 50s cymbal with a 6" bell, and another one with a 5.5") but I've got lots more info since then. And my measuring techniques have gotten better as well. You'll see I've just updated that list with 5.5" for the 21" diameter:

http://www.drumforum.org/index.php?/...w-block-2590g/

Did you measure across the bottom of the cymbal to come up with the 21 1/8" diameter? Measuring across the top includes the bell and adds a little bit for that, but not too much. Measuring across the bottom with a ruler (or tape which is nice and straight not dropping into the cymbal) is the recommended technique. I have found a few slightly oversized A Zildjian cymbals in my collection and these tend to be from the mid to late 50s. That is the most common era for slightly oversized, but slightly oversized is still relatively rare. Go back further to the 1940s early 1950s and there are slightly undersized ones as well. It seems like the edge trimming wasn't as accurate in the 1940s and 1950s as it was later on. This is a separate phenomenon from the undersized cymbals produced in other places (Turkey, Italy, China to name three) where it seems that they are targeting metric diameters which are "close to" inch diameters. Ink stating the diameter in both inches and cm suggests that metric sizes are targeted and that not all companies decide to use the same conversion, so you get different degrees of slight undersizing for something like a 20" or 21" ride.

Yessir, I measured from the underside. I wondered whether it may have been a 22" that had been trimmed but the trademark stamp was near 4" from the edge so that is probably not the case. I have a trimmed A and the stamp is noticeably closer to the edge.
Maybe I just f'ed up?

Originally Posted by woody1953

Black Label,
We may have clones!

Zenstat,
Please confirm that this is a 60's A with the attached photo. The measurements as promised are; diameter 21 1/8" and the bell is 5 1/2" (measured underside).

Indeed!! I re-measured mine and it is also 21 1/8". I re-weighed it and it weighs in at 2960g. I think that they are indeed clones

here's a pic of it on the scale for some idea on the profile

Holy moly Black Label........clone Zildjians AND Ludwig Blue Oyster Pearl.

Brothers of different mothers?

Twins. Only their mother could tell them apart...

So just an update on the bell diameter of the Sweet Ride. I've done some scaling of photos from both the top and bottom and it looks like the Sweet Ride has a 5.5" bell not the 6" I was told. I might try scaling from a few more photos, but if anybody has a Sweet Ride can you measure the bell diameter for me? I've also got some photo examples of smaller diameter bells which I'd like to bring together with the 5.5" and the 6" to illustrate the differences. The smaller bells are from 1950s cymbals which isn't too surprising.

There is idle talk about smaller bells on 1950s (or older) cymbals now and again, but it isn't very informative because of lack of specificity. We need to know what production era cymbal, what weight class, any model ink (or other telltales), and a measurement of bell diameter. Once we have something like that for 100 20" cymbals then we can look at whether the proportions of 3.5", 4", 4.5", 5", 5.5", 6" bells changed in different production eras for 20" diameter cymbals. I've already collected enough evidence to show it isn't some black and white thing but rather one of proportions because there are a range of bell diameters on 20" cymbals from the same era. We know about a 5" ride bell, a 5.5" crash and crash/ride bell, and the occasional 4" bell turning up (3 or 4 in my records just quickly glancing through). I've even seen a 4" bell on a 22" Trans Stamp, and have two records of a 6" bell on a 20" (1970s era) although I need to go and remeasure those. So there is bell variation out there for a given diameter. Although mostly it is "bigger cymbal gets bigger bell" there is a bit more to it once you factor in model variations.

As Quasimodo says, "The bells! The bells!"