Bought a new house and canoe was hiding in back of garage serial numb×er #144790 can someone please tell me about the canoe and what its worth? I may hang it on the wall and resore it. Thank you!
This looks like a WW2-era Old Town, except the caned seats may have originally been planked seats, as cane was in short supply. The seats' manufacture is not a definitive assessment.
More pictures are always good... we like pictures of canoes!
Congratulations and welcome, the Old Town canoe with serial number 144790 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 March and June, 1946. The original exterior paint color was dark green. It shipped on June 25th, 1946 to Bangor, Pennsylvania. A scan of this build record can be found 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/catalogs/old-town/records/ if you want more details. I hope that you will donate, join or renew your membership to the WCHA so that services like this can continue. See https://www.woodencanoe.org/about to learn more about the WCHA and https://www.woodencanoe.org/shop to donate or join.
It is possible that you could have another number or manufacturer if this description doesn't match your canoe. The keel and seats have probably been replaced as Paul mentioned. Feel free to reply here if you have any other questions.