The Old Town canoe with serial number 78863 is a 17 foot, CS (Common Sense) grade, HW (Heavy Water) model with red Western Cedar planking, open spruce gunwales, birch decks, birch trim, half ribs, a keel, and a floor rack. It was built between May and October, 1923. The original exterior paint color was dark green. It shipped on June 16th, 1924(?) to Manchester, New Hampshire. A scan of this build record can be found by following the link at the thumbnail image attached below.
These scans and several hundred thousand more were created with substantial grants from the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association (WCHA) and others as you probably know well. 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/wcha/ to learn more about the WCHA and
http://www.wcha.org/join.php to join.
The Old Town Canoe Company is most likely to respond to a serial number request if you send them the number, a check for three dollars, and mention part number 01.1332.0100 which is shown at
http://oldtown.wcha.org/parts.html as "BUILD RECORD HISTORY RESEARCH."
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.
Benson
