1920's Old Town

[Steve Ambrose]

I'm working on an 18' sailing canoe with sponsons, heart-shaped decks, diamond head bolts, CS grade based on what's left of the rails, and curved carry handles. It's so far gone that all I can decipher on one of the stems is an 8 which based on its location appears to be in the main serial number and not part of the "18" if there was such at that point in time. It's been in the same family since the original purchase and would have been delivered around Philadelphia PA. Family name is Frese but I need to verify since it was his grandmother that bought it so it could have been under her maiden name or a Philadelphia dealer. If it's possible to run a query on other parameters than the serial number I sure would appreciate some help!

 

[Dan Miller]

The serial number records for Old Town are graphic image files, so are not searchable. Even to locate a serial number is a bit of a hunt-and-peck process.

A small fraction of the records have been transcribed, and this would include the destination, so that could serve as a starting point, and who knows - maybe you will get luck and find your canoe among these! It is a long shot though. Details about the transcription project are here: http://wcha.org/legacypages/ot_records/

Several folks have undertaken such a search to locate specific records in the absence of a serial number, and with a fairly high degree of success. The 1920s includes about 50,000 records, so it could take a while! Using a program like Adobe Bridge that will allow you to flip through reasonable sized thumbnails can make this faster, though still only slightly less tedious.

 

[Steve Ambrose]

Thanks Dan, I was afraid of that. I'll see if I can get the family to narrow down the timeframe before I tackle anything like that!

 

[normsims]

Steve,

The curved carry handles may indicate that the canoe is a Carleton. In the 1920s, the Carleton canoes were built in the Old Town factory and had heart-shaped decks and diamond head bolts. They also carried serial numbers that are similar to Old Town numbers, but in a different data base.

Norm

 

[Dan Miller]

Norm is correct - I read to fast and missed the heart-shaped deck part. Same applies, but only 6,000 records to wade through.

Check with Benson - the Carleton records may have been fully transcribed. If so, you can at least narrow it down to those shipped to PA.

You would also be hedging that it was shipped directly to the family, rather than being purchased through an agent such as Edward K. Tryon, a sporting goods dealer in Philly.

Dan

 

[Benson Gray]

Only about seven percent of the Carleton and Old Town records have been transcribed so it is not likely that a query of this information will find the record that you seek. Carletons were occasionally shipped as Old Towns and vice versa so you would probably need to search both sets of records. You may also find many that could be the correct one. However, a quick look for 18 foot long canoes with sponsons in CS grade and an eight in the serial number that shipped to Pennsylvania in the 1920s locates the one record below but it didn't leave the factory with a sail rig.

The charts at http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/carleton/carleton_chart.html and http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/oldtown_chart.html may help you estimate the number of records to be searched for a given date range. There are a variety of tools available to create thumbnails which simplify the searching process as Dan mentioned but it still isn't easy. Good luck and let us know if you have any other questions,

Benson

 

[Steve Ambrose]

Thank you for all the helpful information!