This store began as a pipe dream in the summer of 2005.
That’s when the idea first popped into my head. It happened while I was checking out the “Bones Marketplace” during Bones Fest IX in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t it be great to find a place like this that sells musical bones all the time?” That’s how Bone Dry Musical Instrument Company got started. So on March 31, 2007, after nearly two years of research and planning, the online shop opened its doors for business. Being the first and only professionally hosted e-commerce shop specializing in rhythm bones we instantly saturated the market.
As you can imagine, the market for rhythm bones is highly specialized and teeny-tiny. So to help keep the store afloat we added additional products that might appeal to bones players. Among the first additions were bodhran beaters (made from old fiddle bows), and vintage washboards. Then we added washboard accessories such as tin cups, cow bells, and thimbles. Today, in addition to serving bones players, we are expanding our selection of hard-to-find rhythm instruments that might interest a broader scope of traditional folkroots musicians, and jug bands.
Besides our original online store, you can find selected products on eBay, and more recently at Amazon. We are the largest distributor for most of our main suppliers and also produce several proprietary product brands. A few product lines have expanded beyond the folkroots community. Our customers now include a fair number of vintage car enthusiasts, museums, clowns, string musicians and ballet dancers (but that’s another story).