I picked up this Paiste crash (16" and 950g) yesterday and I have a few questions for the gurus...
#1 Is it common to be able to see the stamp from the bottom side of the cymbal when they are this thin?
#2 Would it be from the 1960's?
#3 How many millions of dollars is it worth?
Thanks!
P.S. Speaking of gurus, has anyone else watched the documentary about the Bagwan Rashneesh in the 80's called Wild Wild Country? So crazy, but so interesting!
That guru designation simply reflects raw number of posts as a proxy for quality of information. I've just got data and I know how to use it. :)
#1 it is uncommon to be able to see the stamp from the bottom side of the cymbal, but in some cases it can be seen from the bottom side even though the cymbal is a solid medium weight. Thus it seems to be partly related to how much pressure was set on the stamping machine and not just how thick the cymbal is. Stamp visible from the bottom suggests a thinner cymbal, but does not provide as accurate a weight prediction as weight, nor as accurate a measure of thickness as a micrometer.
#2 That cymbal doesn't appear to have a serial number below the bell so that means 1959ish-mid 1972 on present evidence. So yeah, 1960s in nice round decade numbers.
#3 I've recorded 78 sales of these and the variation in price is large: $95 to $330 large. Given the lack of ink the median expected price would be about $175 plus or minus $30, but that's not factoring in the weight. I haven't got time to create a more sophisticated pricing model which includes weight just now, but the general observation would be that the lower weight would increase the expected price a bit.
Once the model ink has gone it is tricky to be sure what model it is. In 16" there were several different models available. Based on a very few examples with surviving ink for 16" pre serial 602s
PAPER THIN no wt given but I have recorded one with that ink designation
THIN CRASH 947g
THIN 970g, 1030g, 1049
MEDIUM 1236g
MARCHING 1400g
So yours does have a weight which makes it a likely THIN CRASH model or a THIN. Unfortunately many sellers don't given weights and simply call any cymbal which is 16" in diameter a "crash". There were also Hi-Hat pairs available in 16" so an orphan preserial 16" with no model ink could be a H-Hat. I don't have any weights for those, nor that model ink recorded.
Thanks again Zenstat!
I had this thought today...the way you analyze the cymbal market must be similar to how high level coin collectors think. Collecting cymbals is like collecting big coins, but better and more nuanced, because they have a higher purpose.
