Vintage Corner: Homemade vs. commercially made pads -- Is there a timeline?

In my ongoing research and collecting efforts, I've come up with a startling hunch, and it may be right or wrong.
Basically, the oldest large-scale factory-made practice pads in my collection date from the 1940's or later. There's an overlap with some pads made commercially on a much small scale, like Lee Lockhart's Timpette , and the "Deco" pad made by Robert Woods, also dating from the 1940s.

Another pad, labeled simply "The Globe," likely dates from this era as well.

My oldest pad, which I acquired recently, appears to be homemade and according to the seller, dated from the late 1920's and owned by his grandfather.

Here's a pad that shows up on Pinterest pages periodically, French-made and dating to the early 1940's. It appears to be either homemade, or created by a small cottage business.

Finally, there's the Bower pad, which was designed in the early 1910's and may be the oldest known commercially-produced practice pad. This is a reproduction of the pad that someone made about fifteen years ago, and ad copy about the Bower pad, patented in 1920 and licensed to a manufacturing company in Los Angeles.

 

 

Being made of a wooden platform drilling with holes, and having wool felt stuffing and a leather surface laced to that, the result would have been a very primitive practice pad. Most drummers at this time or earlier either practiced in places where they would not disturbb anyone, or they made their own practice pads from whatever they had on hand.

I would love to find something from this early period of practice pad development and design, to add to my collection and try out for myself.

Calling all Vintage drum enthusiasts!
If you have practice pads in your collection dating from 1940 or earlier, please show them off with photos, videos and other documentation.
You can send it to me at

periwinklekog AT yahoo DOT com

 

And if you're on Facebook, consider joining the group Collecting Vintage Drums, where members share photos of their collections and share historical info as well.

Cheers and happy drumming!