Award plaques and desk sets for ship's reunion

These are samples of 25 award plaques and 2 silent auction items for an upcoming ship’s reunion for USS Conserver ARS-39. I served on Conserver from 1974-77. During our WESTPAC cruise in 1975, my division officer purchased a pickup truck load of tropical mango in the Philipines and transported back to the states on the ship. It cost him two bottles of gin. He used some of it over the years. Last year he donated the rest to me to make into award plaques and auction items.

Tropical mango’s heartwood is a deep rich brown with lighter sapwood. I was able to make numerous plaques with the heartwood/sapwood contrast boards. When I ran out of heartwood/sapwood boards I added poplar stripes for the remainder of the plaques. This stuff was mostly straight grain, slightly porous like mahogany, heavy and dense. And well seasoned given that it’s been setting in a San Francisco bay area garage since 1975!

-- sugarpine