Who told you that tall tale? Unless you live in a robber baron palace, it's likely to be bunk.

Did a Nigerian prince tell you this?

I bought the property not too long ago. Previous owner had left info on whom to contact for routine servicing of the home. So I called the water treatment company on the list. The individual that came out knew previous owner well. He shared interesting facts about the home. Some of those facts had already been verified.

Bring in an insurance adjuster....they will do it for *Free*...but it could cost you on your insurance.

Try asking your question on a woodworking site. They'll probably want photos. Or a good local antique dealer, one who knows his woods.

"Good local antique dealer"s, are few and far between, and not the correct resource for this type of info.

With the patina that has built up over the years on this unfinished wood, it will be difficult to tell what it is without getting down into the "new" wood, and having extensive knowledge of woods. There are many African woods that look similar, but are very different. It is a problem that even exists today in the exotic wood market. Many low quality woods are sold as high end stuff. Mahogany substitutes are a prime example. It makes no sense to me to import wood from Africa for roof framing.

Oh but Al, I don't agree...

There are lot's of reasons we see interesting "histories" behind exotic lumber nowadays... and many/most of those reasons have dollar signs in front of them.

I have no knowledge regarding the framework used in the OP's roof, in this case, so I'll exclude it.

But I'm constantly amazed at the stories concocted by many of the reclaimed lumber providers these days. Everything from "came from a dismantled tobacco barn" to "reclaimed from an ancient castle in the French countryside"...

People are buying the "PROVENANCE" with little attention to the product, in many cases. A conversation piece.

Granted, there may be a smidgen of truth built into the pedigrees of a product line... but I think they play it pretty fast & loose when dealing with the whole truth.

Several years ago, a friend in the floor biz came to me with a batch of antique French Chevron Pattern flooring, purportedly "removed" from a chateaux. Because the stuff was so poorly milled and irregular, there was NO way he was going to be able to re-install it here. His customer had purchased the material for an embarrassingly large amount of money... and in that case, it was indeed old, because it had literally been milled BY HAND, and hand mitered to 45 degrees (give or take 3-4 degrees) onsite, and had been so irregular in thickness, it still had the sand/dirt that it had been laid in to allow for the variances.

Now THAT material had a history... although we basically re-milled and re-cut it to make it installable here. Funny thing was that the project came up short by almost 500 feet, and we made matching material (right down to the distressing) using domestic white oak R&Q... for half the price and nobody could tell the difference.

Uh Select, what are you not agreeing about? I agree with all that you said.

What I'm questioning is exotic African wood to frame a roof. I may have assumed incorrectly that this was an old house and consequently didn't have the "sales pitch" or "provenance" associated with it. So, unless it came from a pile of wood someplace, and someone decided it was something special, it's probably just wood with patina on it. If it's not an old house, why would someone use something that is considered special these days to frame a roof? Could have got a lot more $$ for it using the sales pitch.

I've built furniture using reclained/salvaged wood. The last piece was yellow pine from a silo. )Fact, because I saw it being torn down.) And as you stated, the customer was very happy to know where it came from.

Al... I was kidding. Actually I agree with your statement about importing African lumber making no sense.

Oh, by all means... SOME of the pitches have some truth behind them.

Had another customer in Southern Cal come to us for installation of some flooring he was going to by that was "reclaimed" from an old New Zealand sheep ranch/farm barn.

Had the nail holes, patina, all the bells and whistles... and it wasn't cheap... because it had a "story".

Guy gave me the sample, which smelled faintly of lavender, which I found odd. I picked it up on a Friday afternoon, took it back to the shop where it sat over a warm, yet muggy weekend. When I walked into the shop Monday morning... the "provenance" of the sample had wiped out any hint of the lavender... and if you closed your eyes, you could almost hear the sheep bleating... but you could certainly smell the fact that they weren't house broken... and this was only a 3' x 3' sample. The customer WAS planning on buying close to 3000 feet for his home near the beach.

We discussed the situation, and they ended up opting for us to mill rift sawn white oak and simulate the reclaimed "look".

They saved a bundle on the flooring as well as on air freshener.

Yikes... those are pre-digital pics, but you may get the point!

@Select, guess I'm a little slow today. Hope no difficult problems show up at work. I'll have to take the afternoon off. That would be too bad.

Gotta keep one's personal safety in mind, Al !

Take the day off to insure the preservation of your "digits"! haha

Thanks for the insights. I'll update if any new info becomes available.