Bucks County Company Celebrates 40 Years of Business

Malmark Bellcraftsmen, the largest handbell manufacturer in the world, is a second generation family owned and operated business. We are a proud U.S. manufacturer and have been since our founding in 1973. Malmark is located in beautiful Plumsteadville, Pennsylvania, employing over 40 people at our 50,000-square-foot facility.

Although today Malmark is recognized as the world’s premier handbell company, the story of Malmark begins 40 years ago with a man and a dream. Jacob “Jake” Malta, a WWII veteran and incessant innovator, set his mind to revolutionizing the English handbell. Literally out of his living room in the small bucolic borough of Doylestown, and with the support of his loving wife Josephine, Jake laid the foundation for what would become Malmark and its flagship product: the Malmark Handbell.

In the spring of 1974, Jake’s vision became a reality when the first sets of bells hit the market. The response was nothing short of exceptional. Orders skyrocketed as word of Jake’s revolutionary designs, the superior playability and tonal purity of the Malmark Handbell, and Malmark’s relentless commitment to quality and craftsmanship spread. To keep up with demand, Malmark relocated twice over the next decade to successively larger facilities, finally settling in at its current Plumsteadville facility in the early 1980s.

Subsequent years saw Jake continuing to invent and innovate; so much so, it seemed that with every year that passed Malmark produced a new industry first. As a result, today Malmark proudly boasts the largest range of handbells in the world (G1–C9) — that’s seven and a half octaves, more bells than a piano has keys.

Additionally, we were the first and are still currently the only company in the world that manufacturers basso profundo bells out of aluminum; counting both aluminum and bronze, Malmark makes 114 different handbells, with diameters of up to nineteen inches and down to less than one inch. Additionally, our Choirchime^® instruments, which some have called the purest musical instruments on the planet (i.e. void of overtones), give us the largest range of handchime instruments on the market: six full chromatic octaves (C2–C8). We are the only company in the world that produces these instruments in the lower 6th and 7th octaves.

Not ones to rest on our laurels, second generation owners and Jake and Josephine’s daughters Lora and Joann have carried on their father’s legacy of innovation. Under their leadership and with the pride and craftsmanship from our employees, Malmark has been able to remain the market leader in bell and chime design while pushing the envelope with new products, new markets and new divisions. Malmark has moved into: content development, with the publishing of their first educational resource Ring, Dance, Play; pure percussion, with the launch of the Malmark family of Cajons (drums); and gifts, with the launch of Lorabell^®, a division of Malmark that produces bell-themed heirloom-to-be gifts.

Today, Malmark’s instruments can be found in churches, schools, music therapy programs, and private residences, from Tokyo, Japan, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Princeton, NJ. With some of the biggest names in not only the handbell world but also the music world using our instruments in their performances, from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, to the Alt Rock group OK GO, Malmark is quite simply the name musicians trust.