This model was built over a 23 year period in New England starting in 1933 from a kit offered by Popular Science magazine. The kit was derived from blueprints taken on the actual ship by E. Armitage McCann who wrote several articles for the magazine in 1932 about building the Wanderer model. This is notable as the kits were the first available to modelers and sparked the ship model kit building hobby as we know it today.
The kit parts were prefabricated from wood and copper; back then most of the forming work was still required to be done by the modeler, not to mention the painting, rigging, etc.
This model is in a case 32" in length (made in the '50's).

The Whaling Bark Wanderer was launched in 1878 from Mattapoisett, MA. In 1924, the Wanderer was the last Whaler to sail from New Bedford. While anchored of Cuttyhunk Island near Martha's Vineyard, the ship broke from it's moorings in a storm and broke up in the sea.