Club Obi Wan

I need some help confirming some aspects of my 12' Morgan. I want to see if I can figure out when the whip was made and if there's a way to determine if it was made by David Morgan or someone else. Here's the backstory:

I was looking on ebay when I came across a kangaroo hide whip that looked a lot like a Morgan. Listed as 12'. I messaged the seller and asked about the maker and history. All they could tell me was that they had acquired it from an estate and the previous owner had bought it from a western type store in New York in or before 2001. I took a chance and bought it. When it arrived, it had a tag with it from David Morgan. The tag just had the model number hand written on it. Unfortunately, I put the tag in a safe place that turned out to be too safe as even I can't find it now. My question is this: Is there a way to determine the age and maker of the whip? Calling the company doesn't seem like an option because I don't have a name and if I understand correctly, they don't give out info on other customers. It seems to be virtually unused other than the cracking that I've done the fall was recently replaced by Joe Strain because some strands broke on it. Joe checked it out and it seems to be in good condition. I have pictures of the fall hitch that was on it when I got it.

Here's the album.
http://imgur.com/a/7SD77V5" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Any help is appreciated.

Don't have any feedback for you, but #### that's a gorgeous whip. Whoever made it, you can tell it's great quality!

Nice find, hope you manage to get some support!

Cheers,
Bear

Thanks. I know it's a Morgan but I'm just curious if there's a way to tell when it was made and if he made it himself or not.

The handle proportions sugggest a late 2000s Morgan maybe made by Megan. After the 90s a lot of Morgan's whips had very short handle secttions - maybe 10 squares - later they became a little longer again, but as the braiding looks reasonably tight it could be from Megan rather than David. That is of course a completely subjective opinion, based only on my experience of the Morgan whips I've seen and owned. If you could find the tag or any other paperwork, that would help a lot. I would say though that it definitely came from Morgan's shop.

Heck I'd say give them a call. You'd be surprised how welcoming and helpful they are!

Thanks for the input. I may give them a try but I'm a bit hesitant to waste their time with what little I have to go on. I'm pretty sure, based on the info that I got initially, that it is 2001 or earlier from Morgan's shop. I just wondered if there were definite things to look for when he plaited them himself or if there were trends (like you said with the handles) to place it in a date range. I appreciate it as this is the only Morgan I've had any first hand experience with.

I now work about a block from David Morgan's shop!

Will never forget when he taught my 10 year old daughter how to crack a whip, indoors!

(that was 12 years ago....!)

Hi Parttimeteacher,
I think I agree with whiskyman, hard to think that it was made around 2001.
However, many whips from David Morgan shop aren't the same, I saw whips made the same year quite different from each other, so everything is possible.

I have had a few 12 ft Morgans, most of them from the 1990s. One of them has finer cut strands like your whip, probably necessary to get the whole whip from one kangaroo hide.

As far as I know, David did almost all of the cutting out for the whips before 2007, and a lot of the braiding. Bernardo del Carpio told me that David braided pretty straight, so straight seams can be a sign that David himself braided it. David stopped making whips completely in 2007. After that it was carried on by Megan Balwdin and Alex Morgan. Last I checked, Alex is making all of the whips now.

I have an 8 ft Morgan from the 90s that has some twists to the braiding, so I am guessing he cut it out, and he had someone else in the shop braid it up.

Daniel Borton (Bullwhip Borton) has a lot of info on Morgan whips, and if you call Will Morgan at David Morgan LLC he will be able to give you an idea of what years David got help with the braiding.

The only whip I have that I can say for sure that David made completely by himself is the one I ordered in 2005 because I talked to David on the phone and requested that he do all the work on it.