12' Custom Old Town

[kmartin]

Hi:
I had restored this 12' Old Town years ago and just thought of it in discussions about a canoe collection. I found the number in my records and wonder if it was just a one off canoe or if more were built. It had a narrow beam and all the scantlings including the gunwales and stems were of smaller than normal dimensions. The number is 79112 photo attached.
Can anyone tell me about it.
Thanks, Kevin Martin

 

[Kathryn Klos]

Hi Kevin,

Old Town 79112 is a 12 foot CS (common sense, or middle) grade 50 pound model canoe. It has red Western cedar planking, open spruce gunwales, birch decks, thwarts, and seat frames, and originally was dark green. It was shipped to Beverly Farms, MA, on July 11, 1923.

Others here will know if all 1920s-era 50 pounders were constructed as you describe-- the build record doesn't make any notations indicating anything is unusual with this canoe. The scan of this record is attached below-- click on it to get a larger image.

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 and anyone else reading this will join or renew membership in 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 renew.

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.

Kathy

 

[kmartin]

Thanks Kathy:
The build sheet does not show how different this canoe is from the 11' and 13' 50 lb canoes that I have seen and restored. Much narrower with a rounder bottom shape. Even the thwarts and seats were smaller dimensions than the normal canoes. I wonder if it was attempt to introduce a model that never caught on or if it was custom built (if OT ever did that). Have others ever seen this model? Kevin

 

[Kathryn Klos]

Methinks Benson needs to weigh-in on this one...

 

[Benson Gray]

Have others ever seen this model?

I have a similar one as shown at http://forums.wcha.org/showthread.php?t=3968 from 1914. The catalog weights of these models bounced around quite a bit over the years. This implies that they probably tried a number of different things to reduce the weight including using much thinner wood for everything. The non-standard length is unusual but not unique. A ten foot version was sold on eBay a few years ago as shown in the last image attached below. Other research has uncovered a number of canoes built in sizes and styles that were not listed in the catalogs. The first five pictures attached below show one from 1936 with similarly thin wood. Old Town would custom build almost anything that someone was willing to pay for.

Benson