I don't have an accurate figure for what proportion of Canadian Ks were brilliant finish. Certainly some were, as I've seen others. Brilliant finish was done with a machine which was patented by Robert Zildjian. Patent applied for Feb 6, 1970 granted 3640029 Feb 8, 1972. Five years before the time of the Canadian Ks brilliant finish was offered on request for any Avedis Zildjian cymbals, so it is to be expected that there would be some brilliant finish Canadian Ks.

Being brilliant doesn't currently tell us about year of manufacture. Neither does having or not having the MADE IN CANADA underneath the trademark. I'm still trying to get the info out that the production years for Canadian Ks vs EAKs needs revision.

http://black.net.nz/avedis/NAK.html

What is out there there on sites like RobScott (last updated in 2012) is out of date with the current evidence. But my site needs updating as well. That is waiting for the info to be ported over to

http://www.cymbal.wiki/wiki/Avedis_Zildjian

Here are the Canadian K offerings from circa 1978-80 in the Gretsch catalog.

If anybody else has done research on the proportion of brilliant vs non brilliant Canadian Ks please let me know. Similarly if anybody else has specific years associated with MADE IN CANADA vs no country of origin for the trademark.

I don't think that you can necessarily find a way to connect the brilliant finish you have to a certain time period.

It seems that many cymbal makers have produced what appears to be a brillinat finish, Avedis Zildjian, K. Zildjian, and Paiste (602's) all at one time or another have produced brilliant looking cymbals.

My idea concerning this phenomena this is that these "brilliants" might have been inadvertently produced through the use of cutting tools that were in the process of being close to worn out, thereby scraping the surface more than cutting grooves. The result is a cymbal that appears to be a "brilliant" type. However the actual brilliant series that was made by A. Zildjian were produced by buffing. If you examine the grooves on these you'll notice grooves that have smoothed edges to them, which results from intense buffing friction.

In fact that process produced so much heat that it once caused a fire that burned down a large part of the foundry.

I may be mistaken, but I seem to recall hearing that "Made in Canada" came somewhat later in the Canadian K production.

I remember seeing a newspaper report about that fire but I've misplaced whatever reference I had to it. Do you happen to have a reference or link Bill?

I tried to introduce the term burnished (vs brilliant) for cymbals which have a shiny surface which is not done using the specific machine buffing which Robert Zildjian patented. I don't think the terminology difference has caught on. Those shiny cymbals go back to before WW2 in the case of Avedis Zildjian Co, as mentioned in Pinksterboer, The Cymbal Book, p82. And yes I've also seen this in Old Ks and the occasional Paiste. There is a brilliant series in UFIP as well.

Yes there does seem to be a difference in how much the tonal grooves are worn down. The Canadian K in the original post could well be buffed by the patented process from what I can see. At least the timing is right since it is after the machine went into general use at the factory.

This is how internet rumors get started. If you can come up with a specific reference or references then we have a chance to evaluate the evidence.

In another context you can see how Gretsch have alluded to Turkish origin (craftsmen from Istanbul) and not mentioned Canada as the origin for those cymbals. That tells us nothing about whether or not MADE IN CANADA was included on the trademark or not. Just that Gretsch were being coy in their ad copy. We already know that there were A. Zildjian trademarks with and without MADE IN CANADA. Again that has not yet been related to chronology, and in both cases we could be looking at a difference in the target market (USA and Canada vs rest of the world) instead of something chronological. We just don't know.

Sure here's the main source of that info:

Zildjian foundry fire

Thanks a lot for all the information :-) I also didn't see that Gretsch leaflet before, so I assume with around 2270g it should be a "crash ride" then as the normal rides I had before were a lot heavier and also the profile is pretty flat with a small bell. I read that there was quite some "differences" in the hammering style within the Canadian K line. Those differences were probably also due to different personal styles of cymbalsmiths and not connected to the timeline in any sense, right?

Best,

F

Canadian Ks are on all the sets and have their own page in this Gretsch catalog Collector3

pdf:

http://drumarchive.com/Gretsch/

9 page catalogue from 1981

(5.9Mb PDF)

I don't know, if I am missing the point here, but wouldn't the lower part be about the EAKs , which were made in a different way if I am not mistaken. Also, the "sameness" of canadian Ks and first HHs seems also to be disputed a bit.

edit: at least I assumed the sequence to be late 70s canadian Ks -> early 80s EAK (first Sabian HH parallely), same with the sequence of outline logo avedis -> afterwards first sabian aa with avedis font etc. But maybe I am just wrong there and it's overlapping.

Best,

F