The Old Town canoe with serial number 128608 is a 17 foot long, CS (Common Sense or middle) grade, Otca model with open spruce gunwales, ash decks, ash thwarts, ash seats, and a keel. It was built between December, 1939 and March, 1940. The original exterior paint color was dark red. It shipped on April 2nd, 1940 to Chicago, Illinois.
The Old Town canoe with serial number 131026 is a 16 foot long, CS (common sense or middle) grade, Yankee model with open spruce gunwales, ash decks, ash thwarts, ash seats, and a keel. It was built between November, 1940 and February, 1941. The original exterior paint color was light Yale blue. It was shipped on April 10th, 1941 to Traverse City, Michigan.
The Old Town canoe with serial number 134080 is a 16 foot long, CS (Common Sense or middle) grade, Otca model with open spruce gunwales, ash decks, ash thwarts, ash seats, and a keel. It was built between November, 1941 and January, 1942. The original exterior paint color was dark green. It shipped on February 26th, 1942 to Detroit, Michigan. It also had only one tack per rib holding the canvas which was probably an effort to save tacks due to the shortages of the Second World War. The back side of the record shows that there was a prior request for a copy of this build record from Lake Orion, Michigan on August 12th, 1974.
The Old Town canoe with serial number 10047 is a 16 foot long, CS (Common Sense or middle) grade, HW (heavy water) model with red western cedar planking, closed spruce gunwales, oak decks, oak thwarts, oak seats, spruce finish rails, a keel, outside stems, sponsons, and a floor rack. It was built between November, 1908 and May, 1909. The original exterior paint color was N. H. (New Haven Railroad) green with "Lady of the Lake" on the bows. Please attach some pictures of how this looks now. It shipped on May 17th, 1909 to Grand Rapids, Michigan. The end was probably cut off after it shipped from the factory and before the flat back for a motor was added.
Scans of these build records can be found by following the links behind the thumbnail images attached below. These scans 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 join.
It is also possible that you could have another number or manufacturer if these descriptions don't match your canoes. Feel free to reply here if you have any other questions. Thanks,
Benson
