American Propeller Manufacturing Company

[Bought12]

If this was bought out in 1929 and my father purchased 12 never used propellers from them in Baltimore, MD, can someone help me figure out what they may have been used on? I have the last one of that group. He sold the others.

It has a decal for Paragon. It measures 9 ft 5 inches, has no metal or change of wood or paint on the tips. It is an 8 bolt hub. It is stamped 6.75 Right.
It has S.O. ("3") or S.O.("8") followed by 7256. I had folks back in 1980 tell me it could not be 9 ft. 5 in. Would these be leftovers from WWI?

I truly appreciate all the help and this is a wonderful forum site.

[Dbahnson]

Can you post photos?

It's probably WW1 era, although may have been manufactured in the late teens or early twenties. That length is usually associated with a Liberty engine. See hub dimensions for more details.

The "S.O." is more likely "S.C." for Signal Corps, especially since it's apparent that the next digit is hard to read as well. Again, photos may help decipher some of that info.

P.S. I moved this into the "early" propeller category, and revised the text in your post slightly to remove unwanted emoticons replacing characters.

[Bought12]

Thanks

Thanks for moving it. I wish I could get pictures and hopefully before the summer is out. It is hanging from rafters in a storage building and I couldn't get high enough for any picture to be helpful. I will post pictures as soon as my husband gets to this chore.

[Bob Gardner]

Tell your husband that lots of people are waiting here for your photographs!

With kind regards,

Bob

[Dbahnson]

Tell your husband that lots of people are waiting here for your photographs!

I'd love to see the other 11 props that were previously sold.

I know that when the company was going out of business they had an entire truckload of props that they were going to throw away but ended up giving them all to the Air and Space Museum in Washington. To my knowledge only one or two of those are currently being displayed and I've seen their collection of stored propellers, but there aren't many Paragons left there either so they may have ended up selling most of those off.

[bobbop]

Unfinished Toothpick Propeller

I have an unfinished "toothpick" propeller that Dbahnson guessed might have come from the Jacuzzi Brothers plant in California. In researching this possibility, I found that the American Propeller Company also made this kind of propeller. An example of this propeller can be seen at

https://www.aviationart.com/collecti...lane-propeller

You can see my propeller with a description of it at the post "Propeller of Unknown Provenance" in the Modern Wooden Propellers section of this forum.

Good luck on your question.

[Dbahnson]

Bobpop, those are different styles of "toothpick". The one that might be a Jacuzzi prop has very thin tips. The Paragon has rounded tip with a fairly consistent width for its entire length.

I also don't see any proof that the one you cite above is actually a Paragon, other than the admission that it has had new Paragon decals added.

[bobbop]

Thanks for the tip. I will look closely at my propeller when I have a chance to see how it conforms to what you say. From my photos it looks as though it swells quite a bit from the hub to mid blade then tapers to the tip.

My wife bought the propeller at a moving sale, and unfortunately, the sellers have gone elsewhere; otherwise I might have an idea where it came from. Apparently, it had been in the wife's family for some time. I think it is safe to say that it is WWI vintage.