The Old Town canoe with serial number 81657 is an 18 foot long, CS (common sense or middle) grade, Otca model with red western cedar planking, open spruce gunwales, birch decks, birch thwarts, birch seats, and a keel. It was built between November, 1923 and February, 1924. The original exterior paint color was dark green. It shipped on June 9th, 1924 to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A scan of this build record can be found by following the link at the attached thumbnail image below.
This scan and several hundred thousand more were created with substantial grants from the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association (WCHA) and others. A description of the project to preserve these records is available at
http://www.wcha.org/ot_records/ if you want more details. I hope that you will join or renew your membership to the WCHA so that services like this can continue. See
http://www.wcha.org/about-the-wcha/ to learn more about the WCHA and
http://store.wcha.org/WCHA-New-Membership.html to join.
It is possible that you could have another number or manufacturer if this description don't match your canoe. You may want to check all of the digits in the serial number again and confirm the overall length in a straight line. Some pictures of the serial numbers from each end could also help along with the decks and interior. Feel free to reply here if you have any other questions. Thanks,
Benson
