Shawn,
A nice find on the music stand. I would not hesitate to strip this piece of the gold paint, you don't have a lot invested in it and anything you can do will only improve it at this point. Not sure what is going on in the center portion with the inlay. It appears in the photo that someone has run a coat of stain across the background, but hard to tell for sure. In any case there were most likely ebonized areas along with gold highlighting in the line carving. I doubt the entire piece was ebonized, however that is not out of the realm of possibility in a piece of this vintage. You will need to be a bit creative in how you restore it, but limit that creativity to how it may have actually originally appeared for the sake of authenticity. For an original example of a music stand on which to draw upon, take a look at this one:
http://www.trocadero.com/MichadiAntiques/items/547768/item547768store.html#itemThanks,
Michael
