Like in this thread

http://vintagedrumforum.com/showthread.php?t=17764

The third pic in the photo line in the OP.

To me, it looks as if the artist laid the hammer on top of the die on the cymbal, then moved both hands when he hit it.

That's an early to mid 1940s (pre Transitional) and the trademark was applied in (at least) 3 separate pieces. Each one was struck by the guy wielding a hammer. The Ottoman section is uʍop ǝpᴉsdn, as I mentioned before. Happens occasionally. It's handy because it proves that the die was separate pieces.

The ghosted image of AVEDIS you can see above the strong AVEDIS is typical. I figure the guy didn't hit it hard enough the first time so it left the faint impression. So he just shifted the die slightly and hit it again. An alternative explanation is that he struck the die once and it bounced leaving a ghosted second impression. I don't think that is what would actually happen. In order to check I need to get a die made and do some experimental industrial archeology. Haven't gone that far yet.

If you look closely there is a separate area of the image which might have a second impression. That's the 3 dots in a row which appear at the bottom of the Ottoman section. In this case they appear at the top (since we're uʍop ǝpᴉsdn). But there are two dots (maybe all three) repeated which might represent a second strike. Hard to say for sure. But does that mean the three dots in a row are a separate die from the rest of the Ottoman as well? Just how many pieces are there?

[img]http://black.net.nz/avedis/images/14-second-annotated.jpg[/img]

Here's another example of this particular stamp, although this second example has a different English bottom. The letter shapes of JIA in zildJIAn are different enough for me to identify two different English bottoms. The one above is English bottom 3, and the one below is English bottom 2. No particular order is implied in 1, 2, 3. Just that they are different dies.

[img]http://black.net.nz/avedis/images/3dot-I-annotated.jpg[/img]

and in this one all you see is a ghosted AVEDIS above the Zildjian. They didn't try and fix it. So maybe the AVEDIS itself is truck separately? In this example there is a repeat of the Ottoman "Z" (the beginning of the word Zildjian) which is repeated in the lower right. This Ottoman "Z" looks like a comma to us. There is also something just visible going through the B of cymBals but I can't tell what that is.

Bill Hartrick (Drumaholic) claimed that these additional characters (called moving "commas") were done deliberately and indicate which individual cymbal smith made a particular cymbal. I don't know where he is with that analysis these days. If it were true one would expect to find repeated "commas" in quite specific areas, rather than just random placement of multiple ghosted images. From Vintage Drummer Vol 3(3):14-15 (July 2003):

[img]http://black.net.nz/avedis/images/moving-commas.png[/img]

Here is Bill again as at 2009 when he calls them "artisan identifier marks". Matt Bettis asks

For now, I've just noted that these sorts of stamping faults are much more common before Trans Stamps and likely to be because of the technology in use (guy hitting separate dies with a hammer).

Since the first clue is they have to be separate, the second should be the artist can`t see it or he wouldn`t have done it.

Could it be that some came back from inspection and got hit on the lathe again then stamped again ?