[blucar]

Alaska Jim.. It might help if you were a little more specific as to what year vehicle you are working on, i.e. looking for a column.
Generally speaking if you want a column shift for a '30-40 model of a car/pickup you will need a '40 Ford column. As it has been stated '41-48 are the same, with slight differences in the column drop and key/lock arrangement.
None of the pre '50 pickups had column gear shifts. I have done a couple of '36-37 Ford pickup conversions to column shift, using '57 F100 columns which I modified to fit the '37 shaft. My object was to incorporate turn signals into the column. Of course I had to use a later model steering wheel.. and I had to eliminate the locking collar off of the steering shaft.
I have a '40 column in my '36 Ford coupe with a '47 wheel. The steering gears are also '40. With just a little tweaking everything bolted together like it came from the factory. I did remove the locking collar from the steering shaft because of a minor alignment issue with the lock, I also don't care for the steering wheel locking feature on the Early Ford V8's..