Marshall Propellor Co.

[Museum Staff]

Greetings. I'm a staff member of a military museum. www.freedomisntfree.org I'm 'the aviation guy' and I've been tasked with trying to identify a wooden propeller donated to the museum. It was manufactured by the Marshall Propeller Co. St. Louis Mo. and I 'think' the serial number on it is '33S-4013-NO8L16'. (it's quite difficult to read). It's 7 feet long, has a 6 bolt pattern and brass trim along the leading edge and tips. It's in very nice condition.
Though I only started researching today, I haven't been able to find any decent data on the Marshall Propeller Co.? Judging by it's design, I'm guessing it's 30's era. My main interest is, that since we are a military museum, I'm trying to find out if this propeller had any military applications? This looks like a great place to start. Any information you can give me would be a great help.

Dennis, Military Heritage Museum, Punta Gorda, Fla.

[Dave]

Very little seems to be known about the Marshall Propeller Company, although their props do turn up from time to time. I've seen several OX5 props that they manufactured, but I have not seen any of theirs with a 6 bolt hole hub instead of the more common 8 hole pattern seen on earlier propellers.

I suspect within that "serial" number is the drawing number, which refers to the blueprint from which it was constructed, but to my knowledge no one has a list of drawing numbers and aircraft designations, unfortunately.

If you do find more information please post it here as it can be very useful to someone in a similar situation further down the road.

[Museum Staff]

Thanks Dave. Apparently, it came with a picture of a rather odd looking sea plane I have also yet to identify, that has a radial 'pusher' engine on it mounted above the wing. The plane has British military insignia on it??
I say 'apparently' because even though we have rather strict guidelines about artifact donations and everything is 'supposed' to be assigned a donor and artifact number, (we have 50,000+ artifacts), this was donated at least 7 years ago, before I started at the museum and I can find no record of the donation? That shoots down (probably a bad choice of words), back-tracking it through the donor to see if the donor could provide any additional data?
I'll remember to take my camera with me to the museum and take a picture of it. I might me able to help others here. Even though this is the only propeller we have, we have a pretty good collection of WW1 aviation artifacts.

[Museum Staff]

Thanks for your help. I'm not getting anywhere trying to track down this prop or anything about the Marshall Propellor Co.?
I think I've managed to find some info on who donated it to the museum and the picture of odd looking sea plane it was mounted on. I'm going to try to presue it from that angle. If I come up with any data on the Marshall Propellor Company from that angle. I will certainly be sure to add it to the wealth of information available here.

[Museum Staff]

Wooden propeller, a post script.
The propeller is off a Supermarine Walrus. One of the things that tripped me up, is that it has 2 of them! One bolted in front of the other. For the rest of you 'history nuts' out there, I leave you with this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-2UAXblTUE
(The film calls it a "Seagull", the "Walrus" was the improved version).