VTG 1942 WORLD WAR II REGAL VICTORY UKE PAINTED/STENCILED RED WHITE BLUE UKULELE

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VINTAGE ORIGINAL REGAL
"VICTORY UKE"
(see the history on this rare uke below all the pictures)
I bought this at an estate auction. It is in as found condition. There are several separations along seams that will need re-glued; the neck is a little loose and will need re-glued; the bridge looks to have been reglued once and one side has a crack (when they added 2 screws)-it feels secure and attached well now although I did not put strings on it but it really should be redglued correctly without screws; missing parts of decals of the 3 fret position markers but 1 is about all complete. All the repairs that need done don't seem to difficult as there is no real damage or missing pieces. The good news is that there are no cracks, it has all 4 of the original wood tuning pegs; the nut and frets are in great shape and secure and the paint and stenciled artwork is in pretty good shape. With a little tender loving repair, this could be a really nice instrument for playing or just displaying! It measures 21" in total length. The fingerboard measures 6 3/4" w/nut and there are 12 frets. The top bout is 5 1/4" across and the bottom 6 5/8". It is 2 1/2" deep. There are 57 pictures to look through. Selling as is. Thanks!
GREAT ITEM, GREAT COLLECTIBLE!
From the internet; ukulelemag:
After the USA joined the war following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Department of Agriculture encouraged civilians to plant “Victory Gardens.” Their intention was to boost morale and to provide much-needed supplies of vegetables during a time when many food items were rationed, so that US soldiers abroad could be kept well fed. To promote the sale of seeds for Victory Gardens, as well as to involve more young people in the civilian war effort, several American seed companies distributed special “premium” catalogs filled with prizes that kids could earn in exchange for selling packs of seeds. The Paradise Seed Company, of Paradise, Pennsylvania, offered
the “Victory Uke” made by the Regal Musical Instrument Company of Chicago. Since the 1920s, Regal had been creating multitudes of inexpensive whitewood ukuleles, bearing all manner of colorful decorations. But never had they created an instrument with a more thoroughly patriotic theme. Sporting a red, white, and blue color scheme, the top of the ukulele’s body was stenciled with military iconography: squadrons of war planes, stars and stripes, an American eagle, and a pair of
V
’s promoting Allied victory. There are also several “dot dot dot dash” Morse code symbols representing the letter “V.”
But military decorations aren’t the only thing that made Regal’s Victory Uke unique: In addition to its birch body and neck, the
entire
rest of the instrument was made from wood, including the tuning pegs, bridge, nut, and
even the frets
, which are thin maple strips inlayed into the neck. C
ertain raw materials were in seriously short supply during the war, especially metals like brass, nickel, and steel, all typically used to make musical instrument frets. Whatever small quantities of metal were available for domestic manufacture were very expensive. Regal decided not to use metal for either economic or purely patriotic reasons.