I was recently surprised to realize that I've been researching of old canoe records for over a decade. This seemed like a good time to reflect upon what I have learned from looking up over 5000 records (which works out to slightly less than one and a half records per day). Over 3800 of these requests were for Old Towns so that is the focus of this analysis.
The inquiries for records have not arrived at a uniform rate as shown in the blue chart below. The demand grew reasonably steadily until the peak 2014 and have been falling off since then. This may mean that we have reached the point where enough barns and boat houses have been searched for old canoes that new discoveries may now come at a decreasing rate.
Everyone expects newer canoes to be more common than older ones but the green chart below shows that the difference is less dramatic than anticipated. The bump at the low end up to the 20000 range is probably due to the overlap with the Carleton and Kennebec serial number ranges. People will frequently request a low Old Town serial number and then discover that they actually have a canoe from another builder when the Old Town build record doesn't match their canoe. The drop off after the 185000 range may reflect that far fewer wooden canoes were being built then and that plastic canoe owners are less interested in researching their build records.
I wonder how this will all change over the next ten years.
Benson
The inquiries for records have not arrived at a uniform rate as shown in the blue chart below. The demand grew reasonably steadily until the peak 2014 and have been falling off since then. This may mean that we have reached the point where enough barns and boat houses have been searched for old canoes that new discoveries may now come at a decreasing rate.
Everyone expects newer canoes to be more common than older ones but the green chart below shows that the difference is less dramatic than anticipated. The bump at the low end up to the 20000 range is probably due to the overlap with the Carleton and Kennebec serial number ranges. People will frequently request a low Old Town serial number and then discover that they actually have a canoe from another builder when the Old Town build record doesn't match their canoe. The drop off after the 185000 range may reflect that far fewer wooden canoes were being built then and that plastic canoe owners are less interested in researching their build records.
I wonder how this will all change over the next ten years.
Benson
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