Morris Serial Numbers Penciled Onto Seats

Kathryn Klos

squirrel whisperer
I recently received pictures from a member who found the serial number that was on the brass plate of his Morris (approx. 1910 vintage) was also penciled onto the underside of the seats. If anyone else finds such a thing, let me know.

This tells us a couple things, including possibility that someone might find a serial number on a canoe with a missing tag. It means specific seats were assigned for that canoe. And it tells me that serial numbers might be located on other parts-- that little brass plate probably didn't go on until the inside of the canoe was finished, so the hull must have had a number in pencil or chalk or crayon. The hulls recovered after the Morris fire that were finished at Old Town had been assigned numbers and were sent to specific people who had ordered them. My guess is that the serial numbers were on those hulls somewhere.

The problem is that a canoe that's missing the s/n tag may be in rough shape and evidence of a s/n written somewhere may have vanished, but if we know something might be there, we can look more carefully-- just as we do when we're checking the stems of an Old Town that doesn't seem to have a serial number-- we know it's there, and sometimes we find it.

So, we'll be checking the undersides of the seats and such of our tagless-Morris with fingers crossed!

Kathy
 
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