I`m gonna guess 1929,..when Aram came to the US !!

Then I`m gonna guess it was in Quincy MA !!

I'm pretty sure they hand hammered the A's up until the 1960's but not 100% sure....this is why I asked.....DOH

According to Zildgian`s web site, in historical timelines,...in the early 80`s, Armand re-invests profits to update factories into modern era with CNC spinning, rolling, and hammering machinery, to find what they call ...The Sound !!

I wanna note that my A zildgian with the holes was put in the late 60`s early 70`s by stamp ID,..but the hammering on it looks too uniform and tight to be done by hand,..There are hand operated hammering machienes, but does that count as hand hammered ??

I believe they started using the Quincy Drop Hammer in '55. They gradually phased out hand hammering, until they stopped using it altogether sometime around the late 1960's.

-Bill

[COLOR="Purple"]There are old A's I have had as late as late '60's which still showed hand-hammering. Definitely NOT as much as, say, a late '50's...but still some hand hammering was apparent on 'em.

It seems to have stopped when the hollow-ink logo ones started appearing...which would'a been early 70's, right ?[/COLOR]

Think you're bang on Ludwig Dude. Webmaster states that in the early 60's they stopped hand hammering. Check it out here:

http://www.vintagecymbalguide.com/zildjian_stamps_a.html

To the untrained eye (ahem, mine) is it easy to tell the difference between a cymbal that's been hand hammered versus one that hasn't? Maybe it's not so easily described.

No, its not that easy at all. For the most part it helps to know what eras were hand hammered because sometimes the hammering is nearly as perfect as a machine would do.