30's Old Town

[desert paddler]

A little help please,
About 30 years ago I restored what I believed to be an Old Town 15 ft canoe. It was given to me as a gift and the history I received on the canoe at the time was that it was built in the 1930's. I have never confirmed this. The stamp on the stem reads: 103448 15. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Benson Gray]

Welcome and congratulations, the Old Town canoe with serial number 103448 is a 15 foot long, AA (or top) grade, fifty pound model with red Western cedar planking, open mahogany gunwales, a keel, a floor rack, and rubber bumpers for the bang plates. It was built between October, 1929 and July, 1931. The original exterior canvas covering was painted dark green. It shipped on September 29th, 1931 to Tallahassee, Florida. A scan showing this build record can be found below.

This scan was created with substantial grants from the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association (WCHA) and others. Additional information about 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 also possible that you could have another number or manufacturer if this description doesn't match the canoe. Please attach a picture if the rubber bumpers are still present. Feel free to reply here if you have any other questions.

Benson

 

[Michael Grace]

I believe this is the first time I’ve seen “rubber bumpers for bangplates” on a build record. It would be interesting to know more.

 

[Greg Nolan]

Well, it is the second time I have seen rubber bumpers on an OT build record. The build record for our OT 15' 50 pound model from roughly the same time shows that it originally was equipped with "Rubber Bumper in [on?] O.S.S." O.S.S. presumably refers to the wooden outside stems on our canoe.

It is notable that both canoes were sold to the physical education departments of southern colleges. Perhaps the schools expected them to be used unusually hard, and/or perhaps they were going to be used in swimming pools where brass bang plates might have been expected to damage the tile or concrete edge of the pool.

When we got the canoe in 2009, there were no rubber bumpers, only regular brass bang plates. It may be that the rubber bumpers were never actually used -- the canoe was shipped to Georgia on December 14, 1931, then returned to OT on February 4, 1932 to have a hole in the canvas and broken planking, and after repairs, was resold to someone in Maine. The canoe may have been damaged in shipping and may not have been delivered to the college. The repair/resale notes on the back of the build record do not mention the rubber bumpers or bang plates. I wonder if the rubber bumpers were afixed over standard brass bang plates.

I would be curious to know what kind of bang plates the canoe had on it when restored 30 years ago. Even more, I would be curious to know wat the rubber bumpers looked like.

Greg

 

[desert paddler]

Excellent! Thanks for the info. That is very close to what had been relayed to me when I started working on it. I took about a year, after college, to restore it. It was a local boat for sure. I was raised in Tallahassee and am familiar with the history of it being a women's college. When I started, the boat it was about 60-70% rotted out. I made new mahogany gunwales and decks. Replaced many of the ribs and cedar planks. I had to make and cane new seats. There was no evidence of any remaining rubber bangplates. I had to make new fore and aft stems as well as a new keel. All of the hardware was missing and I was fortunate to have a friend who had a similar Old Town which had completely rotted away in his yard. I was able to dig up all of the brass hardware and use it on this boat. It is not, obviously, restored to original condition, but a great project none the less.
Many thanks,
George