Copied this out of Wiki, so grain of salt......

Roberto Spizzichino

Roberto Spizzichino is an Italian Jazz drummer and renowned master cymbalsmith. Spizzichino personally lathes and hand hammers cymbals in his workshop in San Quirico, Tuscany in the tradition of the K Zildjian cymbal makers from Istanbul. The first Spizzichinos were made from inexpensive, heavy B20 blanks imported from China. By heating, hand hammering and lathing the material, Spizzichino sought to bring out desirable sound characteristics often lacking in machine-made modern cymbals. Spizzichino became unsatisfied with the purity of the Chinese material after a couple years, and found a different supplier. All Spizzichino brand cymbals are now crafted from high quality B20 bell bronze discs sourced from Turkey.

Early in his career, Spizzichino worked for the Italian cymbal company UFIP, doing cymbal development and research. It was after leaving UFIP when Spizzichino started experimenting with his own "Spizz" brand cymbals in 1986. Spizzichino also worked for Bespeco, an Italian musical equipment manufacturer. Bespeco still offers a line of machine-made B8 "Spizz" brand cymbals produced according to a process developed by Spizzichino. In addition, the Chinese cymbal manufacturer, Wuhan, produced a limited number of its own "Spizz" brand cymbals during a brief collaboration in 1989 when Spizzichino visited the factory. He was in China to find a source for B20 blanks. Spizzichino was involved in the Wuhan/Spizz cymbals' design but was not involved with the cymbal production and distribution. He was not satisfied with the product and did not wish to be associated with it. Neither the Bespeco "Spizz" or the Wuhan/Spizz cymbals are currently endorsed by Spizzichino.

Nowadays, Roberto Spizzichino focuses primarily on creating premium jazz cymbals. These cymbals are coveted by jazz drummers seeking the 'old K sound.'

Cooll! Thanks for the info. Must be the Italian B8 one.

[COLOR="DarkRed"]mmmmm....the pics appear to be a B20 alloy, though.

Olimpass, is it the color of a B8 or B20 ? B8 is more copper-y looking, B20 is more golden hued.

It looks very nice. It might possibly be one of the Wuhan ones...as those were B20.

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Yepper, what he said

Bob Spizzichino lives outside of Florence Italy.

I'll be in Europe in May and June and I'm desperately trying to get to Italy to get some cymbals made from him.

From what I've heard the guy is a genius when it comes to making cymbals from scratch. He can 'copy' whatever you want from a CD or a particular plate that you bring.

He has a dealer or two here in the states that routinely bring cymbals here to sell. I don't know who those people are off the top of my head. Google search maybe.

Okay, I guess it looks more like a B20 but did the Wuhan version have the red "Spizz" logo or the Italian B8 models?

[COLOR="DarkRed"]I think the chinese ones did have the painted Spizz logos on 'em. The thing is...the hammering on this definitely looks Italian, not chinese in any way, shape or form. So, if it was made in china....and it wasn't made by Roberto's hand...someone did a hella job reproducing Italian-style hammering. I recollect that, and as Kevin notes.....it was the impurity of the available asian alloys which made him abandon that line of production......and head back towards Turkish and Italian alloys.

Jeremy, rarevintagecymbals.com has a few Spizz's, I think.

His cymbals are very, very nice. They are also very, very expensive..and to mine ears...both Istanbul and Bos make stuff just as fine, for about half the price...But he is a master craftsman, there is no doubt as to that.[/COLOR]

I saw some Spizzichino cymbals at the chicago drum show and man, they sound great and have the most amazing wobble, and yes, very expensive but wasn't sure if these "Spizz" were even related to Roberto but who else could it be? Thanks for all the input.