Help Dating Made in Turkey Zildjian

[drewdrum1]

I believe this is 1940s, but I am not sure. any help would be great.

The cymbal measures 20" and appears to be a Turkish made K. It has a large bell. I will update this post with the weight when possible.

[drewdrum1]

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

[BosLover]

Originally Posted by drewdrum1

I believe this is 1940s, but I am not sure. any help would be great.

The cymbal measures 20" and appears to be a Turkish made K. It has a large bell. I will update this post with the weight when possible.

Definitely a Turkish made K. The K in K Zildjian is not visible, but it looks to me like a Type IIa old stamp from the late '40s. A beautiful looking cymbal. A lot of keyholing, but I've seen worse. Also noticed a mis-stamp on the right side when there is a double $$ and a double CC. Curious about it's weight and sound.

[drewdrum1]

Great. Thank you. Will post weight asap.

Is there a site with a breakdown of the different old stamps? I can only find stamp info on the A's.

[BosLover]

Originally Posted by drewdrum1

Great. Thank you. Will post weight asap.

Is there a site with a breakdown of the different old stamps? I can only find stamp info on the A's.

I wish I could give you an easy answer on that but I can't. There are some sites that attempt to categorize the Old K stamp timeline, but besides stealing Drumaholics research, they often have incorrect, incomplete info or use non standard naming conventions. My source is Drumaholic's original work on the subject. The documentation I have was published by him on another cymbal site seven or eight years ago. That information is no longer available on-line. Drumaholic has since made some modifications to the original timeline, but to the best of my knowledge he has decided not to publish an updated version. Much can be learned on this site if you search for Drumaholics responses to various queries.

And, in case you were going to ask, since the timeline I have is slightly outdated and no longer available on-line, and since Drumaholic has chosen not to publish an updated timeline, I wouldn't feel comfortable sharing my copy of his research without his express permission.

[BosLover]

Originally Posted by BosLover

Definitely a Turkish made K. The K in K Zildjian is not visible, but it looks to me like a Type IIa old stamp from the late '40s. A beautiful looking cymbal. A lot of keyholing, but I've seen worse. Also noticed a mis-stamp on the right side when there is a double $$ and a double CC. Curious about it's weight and sound.

I meant double && not $$

[drewdrum1]

Alright, no problem. Thanks for the information.

[BosLover]

Originally Posted by drewdrum1

Alright, no problem. Thanks for the information.

I can tell you why I think its a Type IIa old stamp from the late '40s. It has a thick crescent with a large star inside with its points touching the points of the crescent.. The K in K. Zildjian is small, and is the same height at the word Zildjian following it. The Made in Turkey is not tightly wrapped around the crescent. The components are separated from each other with a lot of spacing. Zildjian at the bottom of the stamp is in smaller letters. Istanbul is much larger than the K.Zildjian above it. ( In the earlier Type I stamp K. Zildjian is taller and almost as big as Istanbul).

In general, the crescent shape changes for different stamps. The size and location of the star changes. The Made in Turkey wraps more tightly around the crescent at the end of the '50s to mid '60's. and wraps even more tightly though the late '70s. Arabic text changed later on as well as did spacing and the size and placement of the text elements.

[drewdrum1]

Update:

The cymbal weighs about 1814 grams. Maybe a bit less. I'm not able to weigh it with extreme accuracy (somewhere between 3 and 4 LBS). Would I be correct in saying that this would qualify the cymbal as medium-light?

I was planning on selling this cymbal but I am having second thoughts after playing it. It sounds really great.