107497 17 enquiry

johnf

New Member
My father-in-law has kept 107497_17 in the barn rafters for years. Sound familiar? Now, with barn cleaned out, we're deciding what to do with it. It's not useable, but otherwise looks sound for restoration, better than I thought. Has a small Abercrombie&Fitch VonLengerke&Antoine tag. Also has a separate small metal "6" tag, the size of a dime, that might have been one of a fleet from a Squam Lake (NH) camp long ago, so says the father-in-law. Any additional info from WCHA about this canoe would be very welcomed - this is a great site.
 

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The Old Town canoe with serial number 107497 is a 17 foot long, AA (or top) grade, Otca model with red western cedar planking, open mahogany gunwales, twenty inch mahogany decks, mahogany thwarts, mahogany seats, a keel, a floor rack, and a bob stay painter ring near the water line on the bow. It was built between September, 1930 and March, 1931. The original exterior paint color was bright green. It shipped to Abercrombie & Fitch in New York City on June 4th, 1931. A scan showing this build record can be found by following the link at the attached thumbnail image below.

This scan and several hundred thousand others were created with substantial grants from the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association (WCHA) and others. A description of the project to preserve these records is available at http://www.wcha.org/ot_records/ if you want more details. I hope that you will renew your membership to the WCHA so that services like this can continue. See http://www.wcha.org/about-the-wcha/ to learn more about the WCHA and http://store.wcha.org/WCHA-New-Membership.html to renew.

It is also possible that you could have another number or manufacturer if this description doesn't match your canoe. The list of restorers at http://www.wcha.org/buildsupply/ may help with your decision. Good luck and please feel free to reply here if you have any other questions,

Benson
 

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What is the word after the date in the line "Railed"?

This appears to be "Rossignal" which is probably the last name of the person who installed the rails. Most of the factory employees were paid on a piece work basis at this time so an individual's pay was based on getting their name on the build record for the work they did. This is one of the reasons why these build records got much less detailed after the minimum wage laws were enacted and everyone went to working on an hourly basis. Let me know if this doesn't answer your question. Thanks,

Benson
 
Thank you Benson,
The color on the scanned build record indicates green, rather than red, which matches the color (green) of the canoe. And everything else seems to correlate. It will find a happy home whether it is ours or someone else's.
John
 
The color on the scanned build record indicates green, rather than red, which matches the color (green) of the canoe.

Oops, sorry about that. I have corrected this in the previous message. Good luck,

Benson
 
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