I have quite a few Ajahas. They were made by Tosco for Gretsch. Some of the small thin one's are very nice, but there are also thick ones that have an anvil quality (if they are in the 13-14" range may make decent bottom high hats), but I don't find the larger range to be great rides or crashes.

Yeah, it is a 14" cymbal, kinda on the heavy side. Just noticed a small crack in it, but I must say, it does sound pretty good as a bottom hi hat! There was another thin 14" unmarked cymbal, I put it on top, and they sound very nice...makes it hard to sell something that sounds that good together, haha.

Tosco didn't begin production of cymbals until 1973 but Ajaha cymbals date back into the '20,s. Having looked over a number of older ones and newer ones, as well as some Toscos and Ufips there appears to be some degree of similarity between the hand signed older ones and the ink stamped newer ones, mostly in the bell conformation and hammering style. In trying to unravel the mystery of Ajaha cymbals, I lean more and more to seeing them as always having been made in Italy.

There are many options here, because UFIP as a manufacturer didn't enter the picture until 1968. Prior to that it was a marketing agency , a union of several small workshops, who made cymbals independantly and in their own style : Rosati,Marradi-Benti,Tronci,Zanchi-Biasei ; formed from the 5 original union members between 1929 and 1931 ,Rosati,Benti,Tronci,Zanchi,Biasei. Any one of these could have made Ajahas or several of them. Ajaha was a budget line cymbal and shows a degree of inconsistency through it's history so , the production could have been shared.

UFIP became a cymbal maker in 1968----perhaps that is when the ink stamping began. I have read that Tosco was involved , later in it's short history( the company only persisted for 15 years) and also due to it's close association with UFIP may have shared in production commitments.

Whatever the situation, a number of the UFIP made Ajahas as well as earlier ones are anything but second rate. I still hold my 20" two rivet hole 1974 gm. ink stamped Ajaha as my favourite ride cymbal and it has some stiff competition , some of it, of magnitudes more market value.

Ajahas were definitely Italian made. But I've never seen any evidence to indicate that they were actually an independent company at any time. Rather I think the name was just a stencil that Gretsch used on whatever Italian cymbal manufacturer that was supplying to them at any given time. As was pointed out by calfskin, these could have been made by any of the aforementioned Italian manufacturers in the early days, which started as far back as the 1920's. Most of these ultimately were merged into the UFIP company after it was formed, but initially it was one or more of them making cymbals under contract for Gretsch. This was a common arrangement done by drum companies that wanted to carry a cymbal line, such as Pasha for Rogers, or Kashian for Slingerland. Even Zildjian's budget line cymbals were made in Italy and marketed under the Zenjian name. Finally when UFIP absorbed all the smaller independent Italian manufacturers, Ajaha then it became theirs; and this arrangement continued until the 1970's. In truth Ajaha was born of many fathers but with each one of them, it still carried the same name.

So there was incestuous breeding going on amongst those old Italian manufacturers. But even so they succeeded in producing some fairly noble progeny. The creation of UFIP represents the marriage of them all. But the truth be told, I generally prefer some of their bastard children over their legitimate ones, with a few notable exceptions.