Information about serial number

johnwesley

Curious about Wooden Canoes
I just acquired an old town canoe serial number 111057 16. I would be grateful of any info. This is my first wooden canoe!
 
The Old Town canoe with serial number 111057 is shown as 17 feet long, AA (top) grade, HW (heavy water) model with western red cedar planking, open mahogany gunwales, decks, seats, and thwarts, and equipped with a keel and floor rack. The canoe was built between January 1932 and March 1933. The original exterior paint was dark green. It was shipped to Kalamazoo, Michigan on May 21, 1933. A scan of this build record can be found by following the link behind the thumbnail images attached below.

111057 - 37824.jpg

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 join or 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 this description doesn't match your canoe.

It may help if you post photos of both serial numbers in your canoe, as well as some other photos -- decks, profile, etc.

Feel free to reply here if you have any other questions.

Greg
 
Your photos don't show the "16" near the rest of the serial number, but assuming that it is there, and assuming that your canoe is, in fact, 16' long, I think the serial number is 111051.

The Old Town canoe with serial number 111051 is shown as 16 feet long, CS (common sense or standard) grade, HW (heavy water) model with western red cedar planking, open spruce gunwales, oak decks, seats, and thwarts, and equipped with a keel and a painter ring. The canoe is shown as being built between January 1932 and June 1933. The original exterior paint was green. It was shipped to Worton, Maryland on July 1, 1933. A scan of this build record can be found by following the link behind the thumbnail images attached below.

111051 - 37831.jpg


It is also possible that you could have another number or manufacturer if this description doesn't match your canoe.

Feel free to reply here if you have any other questions, or if this build record doesn't seem to match your canoe.

Special note: I am struck by the large gap between January 1932 and February 1933 shown in the build record -- about a year between first and second filling. A month, give or take a few days, was more typical, simply waiting for the first fill coat to cure. It is similar to the gap shown on the build record for 111057 above. At first I thought that maybe someone forgot to change the date stamp -- but a check of the build records early in the 111xxx series shows a gap of a year in the construction of many, but not all, canoes beginning in early 1932. Early 1932 through 1933 was the height of the Great Depression, with unemployment running at about 25%. I guess the Depression caused a big drop in sales, with a lot of cancelled orders.

Greg
 
image.jpgsorry for crazy post my phone is all I have, figuring things out, so appreciative of all ur info
 
I am almost certain that the final # is a 7 but I think that is a painters ring and also it measures about 16'6". I am exited and just want to restore it to original condition. Info on deck? Sorry for so many post
 
I'm no expert, but... Looking at the rails where the paint chipped off, the wood doesn't look like mahogany, so it's not an "AA" grade; more the "CS" grade.
 
No need to apologize for the number of posts -- sometimes it takes a bit of poking around at a problem to solve it.

The woods used should go a long way to determining what your canoe is. Mahogany is pretty readily distinguished from oak and from spruce, at least when paint and varnish is removed, and especially if you can look at some that has not been weathered so much -- perhaps the underside of the seat rails or the thwarts. Wood color is not always determinative -- mahogany can lose its reddish cast, and oak can turn darker in color -- and of course, either can be stained. Just from the pictures, I would make the same guess as Paul, but it would only be a guess, without better pictures of more unpainted wood, or without seeing it in person. Old wood can fool you, because of staining, UV weathering, and paint. Both mahogany and oak are open pore woods, but the grain pattern of oak usually shows a very distinct difference between early and late wood grain, and spruce is a closed pore wood, though when badly weathered to gray, it might sometimes be confused with badly weathered mahogany.

You do have a painter ring -- but that is something that can be added later. Floor racks often leave traces even when they have gone missing -- a "ghost" image may remain in the interior varnish, or the toggles made from brass may still be present. The presence of such traces would indicate that their once was a floor rack; their absence proves nothing -- toggles can be removed and revarnishing could eliminate a ghost image.

I agree that the final digit in the picture of one serial number looks a lot like a 7, but in the other, it looks a lot like a 1. The digits of these numbers were individually hand stamped -- the impressions were often uneven and not as good as they could have been -- the top or bottom of any given number is often weakly struck because the stamp was slanted when struck, and weathering and wear can change appearances considerably.

If your canoe is actually 16' 6" it may not be an Old Town -- I believe the actual length of OT canoes was usually pretty close to the nominal length -- you may want to carefully remeasure.
 
Dave --

Would you say that the deck looks like mahogany? I wouldn't -- the varnish is so deteriorated (and perhaps so thick) that I think it's impossible to say -- and I think the same is true of the thwart, as pictured.

Greg
 
Nice to see the sanded wood, but you didn't even need to do that. It's clear from your first pics that you have a 16' CS-grade Old Town. All the features are standard - spruce wales, oak or ash decks and thwarts, the thwart shape is right, diamond-head bolts, shape of deck cutout, placement and number of thwarts. And the number is clear. Seems the one you asked about and Greg posted is yours. Needs work, but it can be a great canoe again.
 
Appreciate the info, think we have cleared up the serial number discrepancy. I paid $100 for the canoe, any idea what it might be worth restored properly. I plan on using and not selling just curious.
 
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