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100 Year Old Wood
This is a story about some special shafts I have in my inventory. These shafts are actually made from virgin forest American Maple. The story is as follows.

Sometime during the 1880s and 1890s, while being floated down a river in northern Michigan, a number of logs sank and were trapped at the bottom of a lake. These logs, which grew in the middle of the hard wood forests of the northern Michigan peninsula were among the last of the original American virgin forest trees.
      While on the bottom of the lake the trees were subjected to only minimal decay. As a result, these logs still contained much of the original lumber for which they were logged. Salvaged by scuba divers these logs are being treated, sawn, and kiln dried. I managed to acquire a limited supply of the lumber from which I made a number of shafts. The old growth wood, more than 100 years old, has ended up producing the most stable wood I have ever worked with. It seems to lack the ability to warp.
      The wood is so stable that you can take a board in the morning and produce finished shafts the afternoon of the same day. Apparently, the 100 plus years seasoned the wood.
      In addition to stability, the wood is darker and tends to have more growth rings per inch. This old growth wood is very attractive, extremely stable, and produces a very nice shaft.
      Another peculiarity of this maple is the fact that the early and late wood are so close to the same color that the annual rings are almost invisible. The rings per inch run as high as 50 plus per inch but generally run about 16 per inch. Shafts produced from this special old growth wood is priced $100 more than the price of a regular shaft.

Sincerely,