In the junkshops of the world lies a generation of instruments that time and progress forgot. John Lewis blows the dust off some cymbals of the past. Steve Mitchel shoots back.

Good Cymbals are expensive as you will no doubt have commented if you have ever tried to buy one. It is of course true that you get what you pay for and if you have a week's wages or more to spend then any one of Paiste, Sabian, Avanti, Zildjian or Duraline will be happy to suggest ways of spending it. Meinl, Tosco, Camber and decreasing in price; Vader, Pearl, Rogers and Paiste again (101, 404 series) are all generally decent but quality is reflected in price and if you spend £35 on a 20" Crash, don't be offended if a studio suggests that you use theirs. If you spend less then don't expect it to last more than one night.

Most of the above makes have abundant leaflets and sales stuff showing pictures of cymbals with sparks flying off or dry ice hissing round making them look as if they sound atmospheric. But if you are looking for a good cheap cymbal and all drummers and percussionists are, then you will be looking at second hand ones and you will come across several names about which there is no information available.

Like violins, second hand cymbals can look very old and be passed off as junk. Alternatively, if they are junk they can be polished up and made to look shiny and usable. A twenty or thirty year old cymbal can look much like a three year old one and there have been several brand names available in this country over the past few decades which exist no more and are therefore difficult to place in any quality context. Some of these are good value, some of the names are deceptive and some are certainly worth avoiding.

It was generally assumed, until substantial promotion by Paiste and others persuaded a large proportion of the market otherwise, that the Turks and more specifically Zildjian were the only people who could make cymbals (not including Chinas, Gongs and other exotics). Some people still maintain that this is the case although the argument is complicated as the 1623 Zildjian family secret formula, including tempering in oil and herbs, now resides in America. This Turkish superiority meant that in the same way that the Japanese tried at first to give their guitars a flavour of Uncle Sam (legend has it that one Japanese marketing executive muddled fingerlickin' with fingerpickin' resulting in a disastrous breadcrumb coated guitar), so German, British and Italian cymbal manufacturers went to some lengths to make their cymbals sound Turkish at least in name.

The name Symara, although English-made had a vaguely exotic ring as did Zyn whose craftsmen practised their ancient art in Wigston, Leicester, and the Italian Zanchi and Simo. Rassem sounds quite authentic although I am assured that their cymbals didn't. The allusion is a bit obvious in the name Stambul which I believe was an early Paiste and perhaps the silliest attempt at sounding Turkish was Krut which spells turK backwards. This could be because they invert themselves when hit hard although one expert advised me that the word 'krut' is onomatopoeic and is in fact the noise they make. Beverley, Ajax and Carlton were all made in this country and at least don't pretend otherwise, nor does the Italian Ufip (later Tosco). One other name was Zilco which may actually have been Turkish, but of a low quality.

The makes which seem to be remembered with least affection are Beverley, Carlton, Krut, Ajax and Stambul, which were all considered to have been fairly poor. Early Paiste cymbals too had a reputation for splitting before they introduced their current ranges. Symara aren't universally disliked and Ufip, Rassem and Zanchi were often quite good, particularly Zanchi, though the problem with Italian cymbals was their inconsistency. The most liked of the makes which are now unavailable were Super Zyn (or 5-star Zyn) which were radically better than the standard Zyn and the bad reputation that Zyn had means that Super Zyn can sometimes be had quite cheaply.

Of course the favourite old make is also the favourite new make... Zildjian. Both American and Turkish-made Zildjians are good and although Avedis Zildjian have been made in America since 1929, K. Zildjian were made in Turkey until much later so you can get hold of Zildjian with an Istanbul stamp or older ones with a Constantinople stamp. I know someone who bought a Constantinople stamped Zildjian for £25 and sold it for £50 to someone else who then sold it for £150 to a shop who it is safe to assume expected to get over £200 for it.

Pro-Perc in London still sell Turkish-made Zildjians (the story is that one shipment was left for years in a bonded warehouse) and JHS now market a Turkish-made cymbal called, imaginatively, Istanbul. They omit to say, though, in their sales material, whether the surname of their 'master cymbalsmiths Mehmet and Agop' is the magic Zil (Turkish for cymbal) ji (Turkish for maker) ian (the Armenian suffix for son of... ). Nonetheless, these new 'Istanbul' cymbals are reckoned to be very good. Some Zildjians were also made early this century in Bucharest but you are extremely unlikely to find one of those.

Inconsistency is the biggest problem in assessing the quality of most of the old makes of cymbal so that Ajax for instance, whilst being in the main of a poor quality would occasionally turn out a good cymbal as if by accident. This means that to an extent you have to trust your own judgement and use the name merely as a guideline. A good cymbal should have no single dominant note but a multiplicity of overtones. To look for deadspots, tap the cymbal in several places from the centre to the edge, the deadspots will be darker or lower in pitch and less responsive. (But if you do this too conspicuously, expect the same polite disdain you get when you ask for the counter to be cleared so that you can roll sticks down it to check for straightness).

Look for and avoid cymbals with stretched metal where the bell shape has been pressed out of the disc. Cracks on the main part of the cymbal can sometimes be prevented from getting worse by drilling a small hole at either end of the crack or even by cutting a wedge shape if the crack is on the edge. Although this will change the pitch, it won't ruin a cymbal that is already cracked as long as the wedge doesn't extend to the bell. Also when a cymbal is cracked on the bell you can assume that it has had it.

If a cymbal is very dirty, it is going to sound duller than it could. You can say they mellow with age but this is merely the sound grooves (or striations if you want to be pedantic) filling up with beer, grease, sweat etc. If you want to clean them, use proper cymbal polish or wash them in detergent. Don't use Brasso!

Having said all this, a drummer's sound is usually as distinctive or not as his cymbal sound and if you can use cheap ones to get the sound you want, that obviously makes more sense than paying a lot to sound like somebody else. The problem then is how long they will last. A friend of mine used three 8" Zyns and one 8" Paiste on a recording and although the Zyns were only around £5 each, they were perfect for the sound he wanted. Unfortunately only the Paiste survived and the Zyns were just ribbons by the end of the session. But if you have paid £50 for a cymbal you have gone off, with a Turkish sounding name like Shish or Kofte then take the brasso to it, rub out where it says made in Italy and try and get £51 for it.

My thanks to Barry Page, Phil Alexander, Ken Ellender and Bob Parslow of Drumsticks, Derby who gave me the benefit of their experience on this one.