George B. Stone Xylophone

In addition to manufacturing a full line of drums and accessories, Boston's George B. Stone & Son also produced keyboard percussion instruments up until at least the mid 1920s by which time they were also cataloging Deagan instruments as their top of the line offerings.

Keyboard percussion instruments built by Stone included xylophones and orchestra bells which were intended for use mainly by theater drummers and gigging musicians who needed their instruments to be compact and portable. The instrument seen here fits that description well and matches closely with the "Stone Dance Xylophone" as pictured in Catalog I published in 1919.

Source: ebay

Stone Catalog I, 1919

The badge on the case of this instrument dates it no later than 1922. Few other clues as to it's exact date of manufacture can be found. By the mid to late 1920s, xylophones such as this were still available from Stone but were being billed more as entry level instruments rather than viable options for professionals. This was presumably due in large part to the exceptional quality of instruments being turned out by other larger and more capable manufacturers including Leedy of Indianapolis and J. C. Deagan of Chicago.

Do you have a mallet instrument by Geo. B. Stone & Son? I want to hear from you! Send Lee a note at lee@vinson.net.

Another Lyon & Healy / Ditson Example

In a previous post on March 1, 2012 and again in a later blog we touched on the apparent connection between Lyon & Healy of Chicago, and Oliver Ditson of Boston. If the rate at which drums born of this partnership are showing up on ebay serves as any indication, they must not be all that uncommon.

This time a seller located in New Mexico was offering a fairly ordinary single tension drum. The wood shell and hoops are held together by eight early styled single tension rods with claws on either end. The drum is short on detail other than the wooden grommet, the ornamental snare tensioning knob, and it's faux rosewood painted hoops all of which are common on Lyon & Healy drums of the period.

Source: ebay

Source: ebay

The drum drew fourteen bids and was ultimately sold for $102.50 which seems to be on the friendly side of fair. It also reflects the relatively little amount of interest in simple single tension drums of the late 1800s.

Do you have a drum made by Oliver Ditson? I want to hear from you! Send Lee an email at lee@vinson.net.

1922 Stone Separate Tension Orchestra Drum - Completion

Well it only took me three months to get around to it but the 1922 George B. Stone & Son Separate Tension Orchestra Drum is all finished. The drum was quite dirty on arrival but cleaned up quite nicely. The third pair of pics below provides a glimpse of the before and after.

from Stone Catalog H, circa 1915

Lee's 1922 Stone Separate Tension Orchestra Drum

The shell label inside the drum bears a very clean date stamp reading 5 FEB 1922, or February 5th, 1922. Stone & Son was in their prime in the mid - early 1920s and this drum is an excellent example from that period. The polished rosewood grommet and pre-"INC" badge are both consistent with George Stone drums produced through about mid-1922. The move to badges with the "George B. Stone & Son INC" lettering occurred at some point mid way through that year. Threaded black Bakelite grommets began appearing in place of rosewood grommets sometime in 1924.


The only major structural flaw on this drum is the missing arm for the Stone / McIntosh snare throw-off. This is a common issue. Maybe a correct replacement will come along one of these days. Also, there is a crack in the bottom hoop where the strainer is attached, but so long as the snares aren't tensioned too tightly, at least the problem won't worsen.

Before Cleaning

After Cleaning

After cleaning, the drum came back together without too much hassle. The original snares and batter side head were re-installed, and a new bottom head (a repurposed Kalfo Timpani head in fact) was tucked on the existing flesh hoop. The new bottom head is admittedly too thick for perfect authenticity, but for display purposes it fits the bill.

Do you have an instrument by Geo. B. Stone & Son? I want to hear from you! Send Lee an email at lee@vinson.net.

Early George Burt Stone Photo

An interesting old photograph was recently brought to my attention by Drum & Fife instructor Pete Emerick. The photo was uncovered in an antique store located in Gettysburg, PA which specializes in military antiques. Handwriting on the back of the photo identifies the snare drummer as none other than George Burt Stone and states that the photo is of the Camp M.V. Militia at the turn of the century. I believe the abbreviation M.V. stands for Massachusetts Voluntary. The uniforms worn by the men in the picture narrow the date down a bit further I am told, roughly to between 1886 - 1895.


The drum carried by Stone reads "FIRST REGT. / M.V.M. / DRUM * FIFE / AND / BUGLE CORPS" which corroborates the inscription on the back. The drum itself looks to be a typical late 19th century rope drum with leather ears, metal rim clips, and wooden hoops. No distinguishing makers mark is apparent on either drum in the picture. The most interesting feature of of either drum is the large descriptive emblem painted on the snare drum shell.

George B. Stone had an extensive background in military music and this photograph provides a rare glimpse into the life of a man who would go on to be best known for founding George B. Stone & Son in 1890.

Special thanks to Peter Emerick for sharing the image with me and allowing me to post it here!

As always, you can send Lee an email at lee@vinson.net.

Polishing the Stone

The 1922 Stone Separate Tension Orchestra Drum by Boston's George B. Stone & Son is cleaning up nicely. The decades of dirt and grime have been removed and the shell and hardware are polishing up nicely.

Liberon Black Bison Paste Wax did a beautiful job on the shell and I would highly recommend this product for breathing life back into aged natural finishes on antique drum shells. This was the second clean up project on which I've used the Liberon and I've been happy with the results both times. The maple color wax was a perfect match for the orange shellac finish.

The hardware was all cleaned using one of two processes. Some of the pieces (tension rods, rim clips, and strainer) were soaked in Dawn dish washing soap and then scrubbed with a toothbrush to remove any remaining grime before being thoroughly rinsed in very hot water and quickly dried. I tried a different process on the rest of the hardware (mounting screws and lugs) which was to simply soak the parts in Simple Green All-Purpose Cleaner and then rinse and dry them. This was the first time I've tried using Simple Green but I have to say it did at least as good of a job as the Dawn and without nearly as much elbow grease!

After cleaning, the parts were polished with Cape Cod Polishing Cloths which did a terrific job of gently bringing back a brilliant shine to the antique nickel plating. I've used these before and will use them again. They will not scratch delicate plating and have no unpleasant odor which you can get from a lot of metal polishes.

Pictured below is all the hardware ready for reassembly. Coming soon: the completed project!