Old Town Serial Number search 117044 16

[Bruce]

I have recently purchased a old Old Town canoe with the serial number 117044 16. I think it is a 16 ft Otca canoe. I want to restore it to its original condition. I think the thwarts and seats are made of mahogany but I don't know what the gunnels are or what the cedar is. When I received it, it was covered with fiberglass but it looks like it was repaired in several places so I am not sure whether the fiberglass is original.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Bruce

 

[normsims]

Bruce,

Old Town #117044 16 was a 16-foot AA (or top) quality HW model canoe built in 1936 and shipped to New Hampshire. It had western cedar planking, and mahogany gunwales, decks, seats and thwarts. It had a keel. The original color was Old Town design #4. I'll attach a copy of that color pattern from the Old Town catalog of 1924. (This came from a collection of Old Town catalogs that is available on CD from the WCHA store.) The fiberglass was not original. It was a wood-and-canvas canoe.

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