A Zildjian 1950s Crash ink

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A Zildjian Cymbals with Crash ink start to appear in the early 1950s. This corresponds to the later Transition Stamp types 3 and 4 which are early 1950s. There aren't very many cymbals with model and weight class ink in the 1930s to 1940s although they certainly exist. Here some 1950 examples of Crash ink recorded so far. Crash ink might go back as far as the Type 2 Trans Stamp and we just haven't seen it yet. But so far the CRASH labelled as such is a 1950s innovation.

For more details on the time line for different A Zildjian trademarks see: Avedis Zildjian Annotated By Years

15" Trans Stamp Type 3 (T3) weighing 800g with CRASH ink.

  • CRASH

16" Trans Stamp Type 3 (T3) unknown weight with DANCE and CRASH ink.

  • DANCE CRASH

  • DANCE CRASH

  • DANCE CRASH

Dance is essentially a weight class designation which contrasts lighter Dance cymbals with heavier Band cymbals. CRASH is in a slghtly taller font and slightly thicker lettering. In many of these 1950s and earlier cymbals with ink there are two different ink stamps with two different fonts and thickness of lettering. We know they are applied separately because in some cases they are slightly misaligned with one another, or even in different places on the cymbal.

17" Trans Stamp Type 4 (T4) 1194g with MEDIUM CRASH ink

  • MEDIUM CRASH

  • MEDIUM CRASH

  • MEDIUM CRASH


Medium is in a smaller font than the CRASH. The bell on this 17" is also larger than the Small Cup with is most commonly found on 17" cymbals.

There is a jump in diameter now. There are plenty of 18" through 22" cymbals in the 1950s but they just don't happen to have CRASH ink on them. The general pattern is that there are more even diameters than odd diameters. There are relatively fewer 23" and 25" cymbals within the 1950s and a few more 24". Again they just don't happen to have CRASH ink on them so they don't appear here. Thus we appear to jump to the next diameter and time period which has CRASH ink.

26" Large Stamp Type 1 (aka Block Stamp, L1) 3400g with CRASH RIDE ink

  • CRASH RIDE

  • CRASH RIDE

  • CRASH RIDE

  • 1948 Ludwig Catalog

  • 1949 Ludwig Catalog

This is the earliest cymbal we have seen with CRASH RIDE ink. The Large Stamp period is mid 1950s (around 1954-1957). The diameter may surprise you but there are a reasonable number of 26" cymbals from this period. The Ludwig catalogs show 22" available in 1948, and 26" available in 1949. We have recorded a 28" Swish cymbal with a T1 trademark, which shows they were making some larger diameters. We have also recorded 6 28" TamTams (Gongs) with trademarks spanning the period from T2 (1949ish) through Small Stamps (1957-1960ish). This is consistent with the 1949 catalog offerings.

26" Small Stamp Type B (SSB) 3617g with CRASH ink

  • CRASH

  • CRASH

  • CRASH

  • CRASH



This is a discussion of early ink Introducing Ink and Mentioning Models which gives a little more context but it is a few years out of date. Back then we were still looking for CRASH ink. Current research has gone a lot further and collected lots more examples of all the ink styles over decades and how these relate to weight ranges.
There is also a downloadable Zildjan White Paper on Crashes which dates from around 1984. It provides more context. Once we get into the 1960s and 1970s there are more cymbals which have CRASH ink remaining on them, but they are outside the scope of this 1950s specific page.

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