c1896 Morris Canoe at Auction

[Murat V]

Just noticed a Morris canoe currently up for auction online HERE.

I'm curious about the circa 1896 date attribution so hoping the Morris experts can chime in.

I did search through the forums and found the original post from 2012 when Norm Simms obtained the canoe. There was some debate back then about the age with Kathy Klos attributing it to at least 1895 based on the decal wording and another mention that absence of serial numbers pointed to at least before 1900 at a minimum.

Specifically wondering if any updated Morris info has surfaced since then that would question this date or if this 1896 attribution by the auction house still stands.

 

[dtdcanoes]

Depending on what one might get the boat for, I would consider finding the best possible mahogany piece for the hole. Then find a professional art restorer to add in the missing parts of the decal, with of course, the new piece stained to match. Then decide the best , most durable finish and buy a favorite champagne and congratulate yourself for doing the impossible. Find that guy who does the fake Faberge eggs.
Have fun..Dave

 

[Benson Gray]

The one at the link below has a more complete decal. This dating seems highly speculative, but I have not studied the Morris numbering and decals in depth.

Benson

B.N. MORRIS 16' SPECIAL INDIAN EXTRA BEAM CANOE #70081 | Auctionninja.com

Circa+1895.+Restored+by+Norman+Sims.+Fiber+Glassed++at+time+of+restoration.+Possibly+one+of+a+handful++of+surviving+Morris+canoes+of+this+age.

www.auctionninja.com

 

[John Sand]

There are a couple of other interesting canoes in that auction.

 

[MGC]

I have probably spent a as much time looking at the Morris chronology as anyone else has, including Kathy. I took the "database" she and Dennis had accumulated and assembled it into the dating table that she later included in her book, albeit without noting all of the assumptions that were made in order to do that. My initial reason for creating that tool was to get past the ad hoc dating that had been the norm up to that point, it seemed as though each Morris had been built in 1895 or 1905 as per some WCHA "expert".
The fact of the matter is that Morris dating remains (as Benson clearly says) speculative and also very assumption based. The Special Indians without SN's are likely older builds, but the key in dating these is the term circa. There is no current basis for such specificity as to suggest 1895 as the actual date for the canoe in question.
That 1900 was/is the beginning of serial number assignments was an assumption that I made in order to establish the table. Dennis and Kathy agreed with that assumption, but to be clear, it is an assumption until we can locate specific provenance to conform that.

 

[Murat V]

Thanks for the responses so far, especially to MGC for your clarifications on the conjecture regarding serial numbers being post-1900.

As a follow-up: Wondering of any updates since Kathy published her article on the 4 variant Morris decals back in 2011 (Wooden Canoe Issue 164:7).

In it and a forum thread here she mentions the earliest decal would've read:

BN Morris
Canvas Canoes Row Boats
And Equipments
Veazie, Maine

Would this still be the case today? Haven't been able to find with anything yet to contradict this, but I also missed the Morris-themed assembly back in 2015.

 

[JClearwater]

I thought the 13' Racine in the auction looked cool. Is the 1900 date reasonable? I'm not going to bid but it's interesting non the less.

JCC

 

[Benson Gray]

Is the 1900 date reasonable?

There is less information available about Racine than Morris so their dates seem even more speculative, but I could be wrong.

Benson

 

[Dan Miller]

Is the 1900 date reasonable?

JCC

Yes, 1900 is reasonable (Racine Boat Manufacturing Company started up in 1893, when Fred Martin left Racine Hardware Manufacturing Company.

Whether or not this canoe is a Racine is the harder question.
Dan