Any idea what serial # "B 54 159" means?

jnlclue

New Member
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

This is a 13.5' long square-stern boat, with small engine, that I recently bought from a guy who said it was an Old Town. He said it used to have a steering wheel on the left side but he removed it.

The beam is about 4 feet. The boat has a deck about 4' long; it appears there used to be a windshield attached. There are three seats. There's no canvas; just painted wood with ribs about 2" wide.

The serial number is stamped -- on the bottom near the bow -- into the wood piece that runs along the center of the boat from stem to stern (basically it's the top side of the keel, but I think it goes by a different name inside the boat).

I've talked with Old Town and they say they never had a "B" model, and that their serial numbers are just a set of 5 or 6 digits. I thought it might be a Penn Yan -- it sort of looks like the '54 Commander in this page: http://www.classicboatworks.net/repairexamples.html -- but I couldn't find anything to confirm the "B 54 159" serial number.

Thanks, Jeff
 
I would look into Penn Yan as the maker of your boat. They used letters to designate the model, though they typically used two or three letters. The two models Penn Yan built that start with "B" are the Senior Trailboat (BG) and Flier (BX).

You might check to see if there is another letter before the "B" that may have been stamped lightly and missed...

Dan
 
Thanks Dan. I looked closely but couldn't find indication of any other letters. The boat resembles the Senior Trailboat; I couldn't find pictures of the Flier online, but I'll keep looking. Thanks for your help.
 
I couldn't find pictures of the Flier online, but I'll keep looking.

Some pictures and other information about the Penn Yan Flier from their 1943 catalog are attached below.

Benson
 

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