Paint schemes

[Craig Johnson]

I am ready to paint my 1910 OT CR double gunwale so I was trying to find out if pattern #23 was available then. I went through the catalogues and found that the first one that had pictures of different paint patterns was 1919 then not again until 1924 and then #23 appears in 1925. The covers of these early catalogues have pictures of canoes with many different paint designs though. So my question is , was it possible to get custom paint jobs from the beginning and if so was there a different source other than catalogues to pick paint patterns from? Thanks.
Craig

 

[Benson Gray]

was it possible to get custom paint jobs from the beginning and if so was there a different source other than catalogues to pick paint patterns from?

Yes, Old Town and most other canoe companies would paint almost anything on a canoe that a customer was willing to pay for. The images attached below show some postcards and catalog pages from other canoe companies from the 1910 era with interesting paint decoration styles. I don't have an image showing the gold stripe and oak leaf on a two tone canoe with a rub rail from that period but there are many other similar designs.

Painters has been adding pin stripes and other designs to carriages for years so the concept was not a new one. I purchased an early Old Town canoe model from a man whose grandfather worked as a painter at Old Town until 1905 when he left for a job painting pin stripes and other designs on Rolls Royces in Springfield, Mass. so they appear to have employed skilled design painters from well before 1910.

Page 14 of the 1910 Old Town catalog lists a 'Gold Stripe 1/2"' for $2 along with pricing for 'Names using 2 1/2" shaded gold letters' for $0.12 per letter and 'Monograms special to order' for $2 to $4. Have fun and post some pictures,

Benson

 

[Craig Johnson]

Thanks Benson.
Have you ever seen anything that a customer could select from? Since pattern 23 appears in the 1925 catalog, but with only a few others, I wondered if 1 through 23 were also available.

 

[Benson Gray]

Have you ever seen anything that a customer could select from?

The short answer is no, I don't know of anything that Old Town produced around 1910 that a customer could use to select designs from. The image at http://forums.wcha.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=10127&d=1269477384 indicates that anyone who was looking for decoration ideas in 1910 probably could find lots of inspiration at their local canoe club boat house.

You can see many of the Old Town designs including those numbered from one to 47 at http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/designs/thumbnal.html if you are looking for ideas. The messages and images at http://forums.wcha.org/showthread.php?5524 have some additional examples.

Benson