Home made or antique?

[JPembleton]

Hey folks...
I've come across and old wood canvas that is available locally but I do not reconize what kind of canoe it might be from just these pictures. The canoe is an hour away so I have no specific measurements. I am told it is 16' long.

What puzzels me is the plank width... the width is wide compared to other canoes I have seen. Also, the half ribs look like an attemp to copy an EM White Guide model out of Maine.

From the picture I do not notice any goring (spelling?)of the planks either.
Any thoughts... I'm thinking it is just a home made canoe but you guys would know better.

Thanks,
Jamie
Fredericton, NB

more pictures here:

http://good-times.webshots.com/album/562802361WviOEC

 

[JPembleton]

I found a canoe on ebay that looks "similar" to the one above that I had asked about.
The ebay canoe is a Penn Yan

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&Item=160217483760&Category=23800&_trksid=p3907.m29

Has anyone seen a canoe with planking as wide as in the photos in the original post? It doesn't look like a bad canoe to try to fix up I'm kinda put off buy the size of the planking...does the size actually matter?

thanks

Jamie

 

[Kathryn Klos]

Hi Jamie--

Can't answer your specific question, but I wanted to point you to the canoe identification guide at dragonfly canoe:

http://dragonflycanoe.com/id/index.html

Scroll down on the left to Penn Yan and see if that matches your boat. Also, if you could have the seller look hard for a serial number, that would help a lot. Penn Yan is one of the companies that built some information into the serial number and you could find out more about the boat in question.

Kathy

 

[Kathryn Klos]

Hi again, Jamie. You may want to check out the various Canadian canoe companies on the Dragonfly site too-- Chestnut, Canadian Canoe Company, Picard, probably more...

Kathy

 

[Louis Michaud]

It sure looks like a Picard. The ribs are usually wider than 2 3/8" and have no taper. The rail cap should be ash and the rails spruce. The stem profil shown at Dragonfly is typical of Picards. The thwart shape is similar to the early Picards I've seen and there are a lot of variations of the half circle cut-out of the decks. The half-ribs are also typical of Picards: the ends are uneven and rough.

Best,

Louis Michaud
Rimouski, Quebec

 

[JPembleton]

Thanks Kathryn and Louis....

If I can agree on a price with the owner I'll take some more pictures and post them for anyone to see.

It not too often I see a canoe around here that isn't a Chestnut.
Naturally the members here are a great resource for the uninformed like myself

Jamie
Fredericton, New Brunswick

 

[john hupfield]

The old Chestnuts had 4 inch planks.Also you have Chestnut mounted seats.
Look for signs of caprails on the rib ends and possible sponson mount holes along the ribs.
Looks oretty good to me.
John