Musicians intuitively understand the allure of vintage gear, from guitars to keyboards to studio gear; “Portlandia” even did a sketch on that vintage-obsessed studio guy we all know.
Istanbul Agop 22" Sultan Ride
But while your Fenders, Rhodes, Ludwigs and most musical lineages have well-kept and precise information on dating, some of the best companies are steeped in mystery about their past and spur endless speculation and debate on the forums. Istanbul is one of those companies.
Istanbul cymbals have been at the vanguard of the Turkish cymbal renaissance since the company was founded by Agop Tomurcuk and friend Mehmet Tamdeğer 35 years ago in Turkey. Since then, everyone and their mother decided to get their hands on some hand-hammered bronze goodness, and these old-world cymbals have found favor with players from Cindy Blackman to Bryan Devendorf of The National to Dave Turncrantz of Post-Metal outfit Russian Circles.
Istanbul existed as a single entity from 1980 until 1996, when Agop Tomurcuk passed away. His sons Sarkis and Arman then left the foundry and founded Agop Istanbul the following year. Istanbul Agop and Istanbul Mehmet, each named for the two friends who began the company, now operate as separate entities with a shared history.
Reverb spoke with Scott Liken, general manager of Istanbul Agop about the difficulty in identifying different eras of Istanbul cymbals and to get some pointers on identifying them and what to look for when buying.
Why are Istanbul cymbals so difficult to date?
We haven’t changed a whole lot since the beginning. The company started roughly in 1978; we’ve hardly changed anything in how we do things. We’ve stepped it up in terms of some machinery, some higher-quality stuff, how we do castings, etc. But for the most part, not very much has changed from the beginning to now.
20" Istanbul Medium Ride (Pre-Split)
What are the best means by which to identify the approximate date of an Istanbul cymbal?
There are a few markers. The earliest stuff that you’ll see that’s actually from the Istanbul brand — not Zilciler Kollektif Şti, or “Cymbal Maker Collective,” which is a forerunner company to Istanbul — will just say “Istanbul,” without Agop or Mehmet. That’s all going to be before 1996 when the company split into two companies.
Does lathing/bow construction/bell construction play a factor when determining the date?
No. All the way since the beginning of this company, the bells have always been pressed, which is very normal. They started doing that at K. Zildjian since I think around the ‘50s. We’ve always done it that way. With the exception of when we started making 30th Anniversary cymbals, which we shape by hand, and even those are a sort of pressing, but a hand-type pressing as opposed to mechanized pressing of the bell. You have to use a mold as a bit of a reference even with those, and when I say “pressing” it’s because there has to be some sort of shape to form the bell on.
In our previous conversation you had mentioned not only the size of the label, but the material used as well can help indicate its era.
'90s Istanbul Agop 14" Sultan Hi Hat
Yeah, that can help with some of the stuff. In the earliest days the logos were spray-painted on with a stencil. That’s definitely going to tell you it’s pretty old, pre-split stuff; you won’t see any of that after 1996.
Some people have an idea that if it has white ink or black or whatever, that it’s some kind of indicator. The truth is it’s actually two-fold. You’ll occasionally see stuff with white ink because black ink was not available. We would experiment with colors at various times. You might see white ink on a Sultan series because it would allow the logo to show better, and then you make the determination later “Well, it doesn’t really look better, they should all be the same.” You see a little bit of that from time to time, but it doesn’t really reflect the period.
Does the cymbal’s weight in grams stamped or written on the bow provide any indication to the cymbal’s age?
No. In fact, we don’t really stamp or write the weight of the cymbal here. There are some exceptions: I believe in some countries there are distributors who will request that from the factory. We [the United States Agop Istanbul headquarters] don’t ask them to do that for us.
Our general philosophy is we’d rather people listen with their ears than reading numbers under a bell. It’s something you can easily fixate on, and it doesn’t really mean anything in the real world. What does is “How does it sound?” and “How does it sound in your room, with your band, with your touch?” There are so many other factors aside from how much a cymbal weighs; some of those are related to the individual, and some of those are related to the cymbal. The size, the model: they’re all hand-hammered, so each one turns out a little different.
The weight is one thing that’s an easy element to communicate, kind of a unifying factor, but it doesn’t really tell you everything. It tells you something, but it doesn’t tell you everything.
There’s a lot of brouhaha in forums concerning the “Green Stamp” cymbals, and you had mentioned the green signifies a Signature cymbal. Is there more to it than this?
Istanbul Agop 26" Signature Ride
There’s a little bit more to it. You can find some of the earliest Istanbul cymbals, pre-split Istanbuls, where the logo would be green. The reason for that and the reason we now have a model that’s the Agop Signature with green logos is that was Agop’s favorite color.
So Arman and Sarkis’ dad loved green and thought it looked nice on the cymbals, so that’s how he liked to make them. After he passed away, they made that Agop Signature series cymbal from a collection of notes he had from cymbal construction, like “How to Make the Perfect Jazz Cymbal” based on feedback from a lot of drummers he had worked with through the years, some of whom are endorsers, some of whom are just really great drummers who visited the factory. Lots of guys, jazz musicians, would pass through Istanbul all the time and they would often stop and visit the factory, check out some cymbals, buy some cymbals, offer feedback.
Agop always meticulously kept record of this stuff, and he would keep the records around. After he died, his sons made the Agop Signature Series from his notebooks, and as a tribute to their father gave the series his name along with the green ink.
Wow, that’s awesome, I never knew that!
Istanbul Agop