My foe. He speaks yet again.

Your signature gave you away. We picked up on it quite a while back and have been monitoring your little covey of corruptness ever since.

BosLover

mark

You are very clever disguising your true identity within the letters of your signature.

I merely rearranged the letters and came up with THIS>>> braslov morek

You didn't count on the fact that I am fluent in Hayastani, the Armenian dialect of all cymbalsmiths.

braslov morek - roughly translates to "bronze muscle".

It is only a matter of time and you and your kind will be "controlled" yet again.

tick

tock

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Foiled again! I'll have to try a different approach with a new identity as Brasso-man, cleaner of old cymbals. I could have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for you meddling kids!

I prefer symballs that sound gooder, clean or dirty-ish. Or is that cimbols...or simbals...xymbels...Hmmmm........tamales?

[COLOR="DarkRed"]Neither are evil....[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Green"]Well....how many underground cymbal cabals are there then ? Because yours must make number ten (unless we are in the same one and we just don't know it).

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[COLOR="DarkRed"]But seriously....I would tend to agree that for old K's...no, it doesn't matter anymore whether they have been cleaned or not. The ONLY thing I can think of there would be if the cleaning took off the signature....THEN, maybe, there'd be a very mild price drop.

I think that with pretty much any other cymbal, it really isn't gonna have an effect on price.

I have had potential buyers try that line on me in the instances where the cymbal I was selling had had some of its patina removed. And I just won't bite on that. The retort is quite simple: "keep it around for a while, and it'll develop the patina again".

(Now when we say polishing and cleaning...we are talking about actually removing patina...not just using soap and water to clean off grime and fingerprints and stickmarks and such. Because you CAN clean a cymbal and leave the patina).

The thing about patina is....it is not just a process of the cymbal surface being 'dirty'. It's not like the 'original' cymbal is trapped under this 'crust' of patina and grime and therefore the 'real' sound has been trapped inside.

Drumaholic can explain this better than I...but patina and age actually causes changes at the molecular (or is it atomic ?) level of the metal. So, even if you take the patina off of a 30-year old cymbal...it's still not gonna sound like it did when it was brand-new....because the bronze is not brand-new anymore.

With that said...yes, to a certain extent cleaning the patina off can oftentimes make a cymbal sound 'brighter' and wider in overtones. I agree that there is a general misconception that it is a no-no to clean vintage cymbals. But that has to be asterisked* with:

If you LIKE the way it sounds NOW, don't remove the patina.

If you wanna see if you can 'open' up the sound a bit, you can try removing some or all of the patina.

HOWEVER, this might NOT end up achieving the desired effect, in the end.

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Thanks Jaye.

It's nice to hear some real info about the subject. I know that some people prefer the patina sound-wise and for aesthetics, and some people prefer the polished sound and look.

In my house I play 60's cymbals with lots of patina. On gigs I play shiny and lovely sounding Paiste 2002's.

I guess I'm a glass half full kinda guy.

Respectfully disagree about your statement concerning the value of cleaned old Ks. What's your basis for making that statement since the overwhelming majority of old K's I've seen in person and up for sale have a rich patina. Very few are polished. And the signature I believe IS important. So important that just about every auction for an old K shows a photo of the signature and paper label if available.

With regard to prices for other cymbals being affected I also disagree. Older A's, especially Trans stamps, almost always are up for sale with a dark rich patina. I have seen very few polished ones, again in person or on line. However as it turns out, I happen to own one that does not have a patina. That is due for the most part because the previous, and original owner, had it stored in a cymbal case for most of the last 60 years before his death 3 years ago when his window sold everything off. The inked model and weight "Bop Ride" and "Medium" can still be plainly seen on this early fifties cymbal. Based on my personal observations, the market for vintage cymbals, at least for old Zildjians, seems to overwhelmingly prefer them unpolished.

Second. I have no problem with light cleaning using mild soap and water to remove excess dirt. It's polishing and removing the patina that concerns me.

One of my main reasons for avoiding highly polished expensive vintage cymbals is that a lot of folks out there have no idea what they're doing when they clean cymbals. They use the wrong chemicals or abrasive cleaners or steel wool, or abrasive pads or use buffing devices that can remove metal, or, or.

Who would like to buy a $2500 to 3000 vintage K and find out that the whole cymbal was cleaned and polished using Brasso and a 3M Scotch Brite nylon abrasive pad leaving deep obvious swirl marks and discolorations (probably from the Brasso) all over the cymbal. I saw such a cymbal in person and lost interest immediately. I would not have bought it even if the owner dropped the price by 2/3s. This owner (not a drummer) was trying to clean it up for resale and used Brasso because he thought cymbals were made of brass, and used the Scotch Brite because it cleaned his pots and pans so well! Ha!

There was a recent thread on this site regarding the damage a poster did to his Paiste's as a result of careless cleaning. In that case however, the damage was only cosmetic, but I'll bet the resale value of his cymbals just went down!.

I agree.

Damaging cymbals is a big no-no. I think we can all agree on that.

When I was asking about polishing off the patina I was thinking of course about using a recommended cymbal polish. I know....what if the guy didn't use the right cloth, or cleaner, etc.....not what I had in mind when I started this thread. I'm not talking about the guy who scrubs his old K with steel wool and Comet. I'm talking about civilized drummers who understand the concept of "patina'd" or "dirty" or "mellow" or "aged" cymbals.

I was just trying to get an idea from some vintage loving gentleman about polished or non polished cymbals.

Thanks for the responses.

One problem is, (in my experience only, I can't speak for others) that a significant number of people out there, maybe even a majority haven't a clue about how to clean cymbals safely!

I personally know a kid that cleaned his A's with fine grit finishing paper meant for wood furniture. I've seen a couple of machine buffed cymbals that darn near had the lathing ground off. I've seen several cleaned with steel wool or Scotch Brite. After all cymbals are metal and steel wool is intended to clean metal right? If somebody messes up, or scars up, or discolors a $125 used A from 1985, that one thing. Messing up an old K from 1950 worth $3000 is something else again. Since there is no way to know how a shiny Vintage cymbal at auction got that way, many buyers will be wary.

Man, now I'm kind of wary to clean my 'new' vintage Zildjians I just picked up.

The problem for me with dirty cymbals is simple - they leave stick marks on all my clean coated heads! And they dirt up other not so dirty vintage cymbals.

But now I'm getting scared to clean this super dirty one. heh

I'm not trying to talk you out of cleaning it if that's what you want. I'm just describing the horror stories I've seen and heard of, and why "cleaned" or "polished" vintage cymbals on the resale market make me wary.

Before you clean it, decide what your goal is. If its just to remove excess dirt and grime, I believe there is info on this site to help you. The same is true if you want a close to new polished look. I'm not an expert on either since I don't usually clean cymbals, although I have used warm water, milld soap and a soft sponge to get the excess grime off of a couple of especially dirty old As. Anything griitty and abrasive ilike softscrub bathroom cleaner is likely to talke off patina.