OT canoe serial number...

[Jackson]

My brother and I have an Old Town canoe from our Dad with serial number 16 77955 on the bottom -- we think this means a 16 ft canoe but don't know anything else.

Can you help us?

The canoe came with a cabin in the Rockies which Dad bought around 1952.

Jackson

 

[Kathryn Klos]

Hi, Jackson--

Old Town 77955 is a 16 foot AA grade Charles River model with red Western cedar planking, open mahogany gunwales, mahogany decks, mahogany thwarts and mahogany seats, which was fitted with a keel and painted yellow with an ebony border stripe and 1/2" orange stripe with (looks like "TD") ends and then shipped off to Tritch Hardware Co. in Denver, CO on May 31, 1923.

I'll attach the scan of this record, and I'll poke around to see if I can locate that color scheme. I'd like to figure out what those "end" are... I know "Greek ends"--- sometimes these records are almost as hard to decipher as a doctor's handwriting.

Scans of approximately 210,000 records were created with substantial grants from the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association (WCHA) and others. Additional information about the project to preserve these records is available at http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/records/ if you want more details.

Please join WCHA or make a tax deductible contribution so that services like this can continue. See http://www.wcha.org/wcha/ to learn more about the WCHA, http://www.wcha.org/wcha_video.php to watch a 10 minute video about WCHA and our programs and http://www.wcha.org/join.html to join. If you are already a WCHA member, THANK YOU!

If this doesn't seem to be your canoe, we can try again!

Kathy

 

[Kathryn Klos]

OOps...

Here's the build record:

 

[Kathryn Klos]

Found It

"TD" means "turned down"... the stripe has "turned down ends". I'll attach a picture from the 1923 catalog... the design in this picture is on a Yankee model canoe--image courtesy of The Historic Wood Canoe and Boat Catalog Collection, version 2, edited by Dan Miller and Benson Gray, published by Dragonfly Canoe Works and available at www.dragonflycanoe.com.

Kathy

 

[Jackson]

Hi, Jackson--

Old Town 77955 is a 16 foot AA grade Charles River model with red Western cedar planking, open mahogany gunwales, mahogany decks, mahogany thwarts and mahogany seats, which was fitted with a keel and painted yellow with an ebony border stripe and 1/2" orange stripe with (looks like "TD") ends and then shipped off to Tritch Hardware Co. in Denver, CO on May 31, 1923.

I'll attach the scan of this record, and I'll poke around to see if I can locate that color scheme. I'd like to figure out what those "end" are... I know "Greek ends"--- sometimes these records are almost as hard to decipher as a doctor's handwriting.
....

If this doesn't seem to be your canoe, we can try again!

Kathy

Thanks very much

The canoe was green as long as far back as I can remember, and was re-canvassed by our mother as a present for Dad in the 60's. The cabin was at a lake in the mountains just west of Denver so "Tritch Hardware" sounds okay. The number was hard to read (77355, 77555, 77955) but I was pretty sure we have it right. I'll do some reading on what an AA canoe is. We can upload some photos of the 'end'.
Thanks again -- this is a neat WWW site.

 

[Kathryn Klos]

AA Grade

AA simply means "top grade"-- the canoe was trimmed in mahogany rather than spruce or ash.