I've had luck ordering our base moldings on line from Vintage Woodworks, but ours is considerably older. I also found our window molding at a lumber yard in Denver, Stark Lumber. I would Google moldings and look at profiles. You can also have a local place recreate it and it may not be as expensive as you think.
Diane

You didn't say how much you needed... that'll impact the unit cost. A few possibilities:

- go to every trim/molding manufacturer in a 50 mile radius and find out if they have old cutter knives for that profile. Just start sending faxes around with a scaled tracing. (Probably the cheapest option if you need a fair amount.) (Our people charge around $100 setup, plus the basic material cost.)

- go to your favorite trim/molding manufacturer and have them cut a knife. Not cheap, but maybe not as expensive as you think. (Also a good high-volume option.)

- find an interested woodworker who should be able to reproduce that in relatively small quantities -- ie, under 40 lineal feet -- in about a day. (Rough guess: 8h * $50 plus materials.)

- or, if existing mouldings are truly similar (though thin), how about building out a skinny one by gluing a thin board to the back? Done well, glue lines along the grain are not too obvious.

Good luck!

We had to do that for a small amount of kitchen trim, IOW sort of a laminate deal and it worked out fine, especially when used in areas not particularly in the line of vision at the joints.

There are any number of on-line molding sources that may have or can make any profile you want.

All it takes is $$.

A router and a router table can make just about any pattern you want, sometimes for less than the setup and minimum charge for a special run.

You can also steal molding from closets, or even from a spare room to match. Use new (even if different) to replace the trim in the spare room.

When we restored our 1700 farmhouse we had spots of bad mouldings needed fixed,We had 2 guys that specialize in restoration make us mouldings we needed to match what we had.

thanks for all the suggestions. i've tried virtually every molding and wood business in san diego, and they've tried to match with existing stock with no luck. i need about 50', so i guess i'll go the woodworker custom route. it's just frustrating that i see people rennovating 50's houses around here, that upgrade and throw out the old molding, but i can't seem to hook up with them before they do it. we're keeping an eye on the foreclosed homes in our area and as the new wave of buyers come in, checking their plans for the old floors, so maybe we'll still luck out.

Maybe you could get in touch with the demolition companies and give them a heads up that you want 50s materials before they tear it down. It might not help for this project, but maybe for the next one.

Try a local sawmill. We had baseboards milled for a very reasonable price and they cut them to the lengths we needed. Be sure to take a sample of your molding.

Our cabinetmaker could not find molding to match in our study. However, I had read somewhere that two or more pieces of molding can be combined (one on top of the other(s)) to create the same profile or look. It worked really well for us. Maybe it could for you?

It would help to know the size of it.

You can try Anderson & McQuaid's custom moldings at the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Anderson & McQuaid

thanks to everybody for your suggestions. mightyanvil, my base/shoe moulding dimension is 1 5/8" high and 7/8" at the base. the photo of the design is in the initail post. i checked your sight, and as usual, there is a similar style, but shorter and thinner. i can't really add an insert, as the moulding is not painted, just clear coated, so seams would show. i'll start looking at the custom route. Mo.