History Cast Iron Mallory

I was supprised that Mallory did not have any historical information for any of their products. There seems to be little written that I have found regarding the early Mallory's. I am interested in the history of the cast iron Mallory and models build for the Model A/B Ford (YA 11-A pictured).
What I have been able to piece together was that they were made for the A with manual spark control and later with centrifical advance. Sometime in the late thirties they were used on A engines in farm machinery.

Thanks,

 

Mallory was blown away maybe 20 years ago and now is just a label for imported stuff, I think.
There were a bunch of pre-modern mallorys for the A-B, and I think most of those used different point sets at different times to keep things confusing.
The one you have is I think simply an earlier version of the moderately common 2-piece cap aluminum version from the '50's and '60's, a really excellent quality part. Its only downside is availability of the tuneup parts. Mallory also made in that period a couple of smaller aluminum distributors with normal type caps that were simply replacement parts, not really speed stuff, similar to what they sell now for A.
The first A Mallory came out while the A was entering production, and I think it was the only one with both lever and centrifugal. There was at least one later one before what you have, with 2 piece cap but with nothing interchangeable with yours...I have one of those, but insides are just a lump of rust and caps are unobtainable.

 

Bruce, are the Mallory distributors for A's any better than a rebuilt factory one? Any performance/reliability advantage to having the centrifugal advance?

 

Anyone I've spoken with who replaced the stock A distributor with one with centrifugal advance considered it to be a worthwhile move.

 

Centrifugal can certainly keep up with the engine quicker than the lever. A's use a lot of advance, so usually, depending on how much is in the distributor, you need a lot of initial advance. I don't think there's ever been one made with vac, and the lever thus has considerable advantage for light load cruise.

 

I have been gathering them up for the lat 15 years and buy NIB parts at swapmeets anytime I see them as long as the price isn't over the top. I don't rum onto many parts, but once in awhile. I can not wait to try one out on the engine for the delivery with a BF 6.5:1 head and Stipe cam. Rod