Your snare is a 1910-20s Geo. B Stone...Mikey

Thanks - you don't happen to have picture verification of that, do you? Something showing this type of hoop>?

Thanks

jim

What an odd drum! I've never seen hoops like that on a Stone drum before and I've got more than a dozen of them sitting around to compare it with and catalogs going back to about 1912. The hardware on this drum looks pretty generic other than the hoops. The butt looks like a pretty shoddy home-made version of those used on the early Ludwig metal drums - not something Stone would do at all. Stone was fairly good about branding their gear and there don't seem to be any markings on this instrument anywhere other than the snares and maybe that's your answer. The thumb rods do look similar but again they are almost completely generic and could have been purchased separately (from Stone or elsewhere) by anyone putting together their own drum. My money is on a much smaller unknown builder circa 1915 - 1920. It's too unique for a well known builder or we'd see more like them out there.

-Lee

Lee, I was wondering if you'd chime in. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Ideally, I'd like to find a vintage catalog or picture of these hoops, but nothing has come up yet. I'm beginning to think that they were a test, prototype or sample which never caught on. The lack of a strainer is puzzling, and I agree that the butt looks home grown.

As you might imagine, a google search for George B Stone Drums leads me to www.leevinson.com

Thanks-

jim

What kind of dog and pony show is that?!? Hmmmm Seems sketchy to me.

There's a lot more stuff (Stone, and Nokes drums and catalogs especially) I'd like to share actually, but that takes time and energy I don't have right now. Ultimately I'd like the old Boston drums to have their own site altogether, but again, time and energy. I know, excuses, excuses. ;)

-Lee