Zildjian Decoding Serial Numbers
Serial numbers on Zildjian Cymbals started in 1994. Cymbals from before that time are referred to as pre serial by some people. There are far more distinctions which can be made in the pre 1994 cymbals based on ink and trademark stamps, and production details like hammering and lathing style.
If you have a trademark on your cymbal which looks like this:
or this K version of the stamp:
then you can find out when your cymbal was manufactured. For example, in the Avedis stamp the serial (below the Made in USA) begins JJ so that is 2000. The year is encoded by 1 = A, 2 = B, up to I = 9 and J = 0. The K version shown above is AJ so that is 2010. Thanks to Rob Scott for the decode.
- 1994 ID
- 1995 IE
- 1996 IF
- 1997 IG
- 1998 IH
- 1999 II
- 2000 JJ
- 2001 JA
- 2002 JB
- 2003 JC
- 2004 JD
- 2005 JE
- 2006 JF
- 2007 JG
- 2008 JH
- 2009 JI
- 2010 AJ
- 2011 AA
- 2012 AB
- 2013 AC
- 2014 AD
- 2015 AE
- 2016 AF
- 2017 AG
- 2018 AH
- 2019 AI <<<<<<<<< you are here!
- 2020 BJ
The laser trademarks look rather scruffy when magnified because the laser is just doing a "good enough" resolution. The image is made from lots of little dots and/or strokes of the laser.
Until at least the year 2002 (JB) the laser serial number appears at 12 o'clock just like the pre laser trademark stamps did. After that it moves to 3 o'clock.
The first two letters code the year. The rest of that line contains a batch number and a unique id within the batch.
