Welcome and congratulations on your purchases. The Old Town canoe with serial number 71664 is an 18 foot long, CS (Common Sense or middle) grade, Otca model with red western cedar planking, open spruce gunwales, twenty inch birch decks, birch thwarts, birch seats, a keel, a mast seat, mast step, and a rudder. It was built between May and July, 1922. The original exterior paint color was blue with an orange border stripe, half inch gold stripe with turned down ends, scroll filling, and the name "Uncle Bim" in gold block letters on the right bow and left stern. This probably looked similar to the one shown at
http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/designs/design11.gif which was known as the design number 11. Please attach some pictures if the original design is still showing. It shipped on August 5th, 1922 to Ingleside, Illinois.
The Old Town canoe with serial number 51873 is a 16 foot long, CS (Common Sense or middle) grade, HW (heavy water) model with red western cedar open spruce gunwales, birch decks, birch thwarts, birch seats, and a keel. It was built between February and November, 1918. The original exterior paint color was dark red. It shipped on March 26th, 1919 to New York City.
Scans of these build records can be found by following the links behind the thumbnail images attached below. These scans and several hundred thousand more 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 will join or renew your membership to the WCHA so that services like this can continue. See
http://www.wcha.org/about-the-wcha/ to learn more about the WCHA and
http://store.wcha.org/WCHA-New-Membership.html to join.
It is also possible that you could have another number or manufacturer if these descriptions don't match your canoes. Feel free to reply here if you have any other questions. Thanks,
Benson
