[tubman]

Ford used high quality steel in all of it's components, and they were reused as matter of course throughout the years. That being said, almost 80 years have passed since the original components on the engine were new and anything might have happened since. Or, they may have been replaced with an ARP stud kit last year. The bottom line is that they are going to have to inspected closely to know exactly what you have before you can decide. Certainly, a new set of ARP studs would be the safest choice, but that's a lot of dough. I'm an "8BA guy" and I save all the 8BA head bolts I come across; I sort through them and find the majority are still usable. In the final analysis, it depends on your experience level and budget.

Back in those days, Ford generally had a two digit suffix for each grouping of similar years. The first digit was the units digit of the first year the component was released, and the second digit was the units digit of the displacement of the engine. There could be a third and even a fourth character which was usually alphabetic that had to do with subsequent minor versions. Thus, "59A" denotes a component for a series of engines first released in 1945 with a displacement of 239 ci. All Ford (and Mercury) engines from the late war years through 1948 were almost identical and all were of the 59 series. I'm sorry that I can't pin down the "A", "A-B" meaning other than they were subsequent minor changes. Hopefully, someone out there is an expert on them, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're not.