New rescue- mostly likely an Old Town, Serial #93984.
- Thread starter abhraxas
- Start date
It appears that you have a very special canoe. If you have pictures, I'd love to see them. Old Town #93984 was a 17-foot AA (or top) quality Molitor canoe. The gunwales were open mahogany and it had extended decks of 24- and 36-inches. It came with a keel, outside stems, a floor rack, and a full-length bang plate. It was built and shipped on April 1, 1927, to Marshall Field & Co. in Chicago. Its original color and markings were Design #23 from Old Town. I have attached an image of Design #23 from the Old Town catalogs of that era.
Molitor canoes were top quality and famous as courting canoes. They are fairly rare today.
The scan of this record is attached below-- click on it to get a larger image. This scan and several hundred thousand others 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 and anyone else reading this will join or renew membership in the WCHA so that services like this can continue. See http://www.wcha.org/wcha/ to learn more about the WCHA and http://www.wcha.org/join.php to renew.
If you are selling your canoe and plan to use this build record information as part of an ad, please consider giving the WCHA credit for this information on eBay or craigslist or wherever your canoe is listed.
It is also possible that you could have another number or manufacturer if this description doesn't match your canoe. Feel free to reply here if you have any other questions.
Norm
Molitor canoes were top quality and famous as courting canoes. They are fairly rare today.
The scan of this record is attached below-- click on it to get a larger image. This scan and several hundred thousand others 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 and anyone else reading this will join or renew membership in the WCHA so that services like this can continue. See http://www.wcha.org/wcha/ to learn more about the WCHA and http://www.wcha.org/join.php to renew.
If you are selling your canoe and plan to use this build record information as part of an ad, please consider giving the WCHA credit for this information on eBay or craigslist or wherever your canoe is listed.
It is also possible that you could have another number or manufacturer if this description doesn't match your canoe. Feel free to reply here if you have any other questions.
Norm
Attachments
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abhraxas
LOVES Wooden Canoes
Thanks for the information. The canoe is not in great shape but it is salvagable. The owner was looking at either cutting it into bookselves or sinking it in his pond as fish cover. The whole think is covered in fiberglass including the seats. We just brought it home today and I took off some of the glass and it exposed the structure for the long decks. The tips look to be gone and the outwale is is trouble too. But it still seems to have the fine lines that it originally had. I'll send pictures as soon as I can.
John and Dorothy Strasser
John and Dorothy Strasser
Kathryn Klos
squirrel whisperer
Hey John and Dorothy-- I've been collecting any Molitor records that show up here... have gone through the OT records looking for them, but it's a lot of eye-strain and helps to know when they show up, because sometimes there'll be a group of them. They go from 1922 to the late '20s. Glad you saved it from becoming bookshelves or worse!
Kathy
Kathy
Kathryn Klos
squirrel whisperer
Looking at the records, I've counted 119 Old Town Molitors, of the "old type"-- as differentiated from "modern" Molitors built from the mid-'60s to present. There are undoubtedly more of them, but I haven't found any built in the '30s.
