Hi Kyle, Old Town 146496 is a 16 foot CS (common sense or middle) grade Yankee model canoe that was completed September-November of 1946 with open spruce gunwales, ash decks/thwarts/seats and a keel. Seats were the "wartime" slat seats (yes the war was over, but the cane supply had not returned). It was originally dark green. It was shipped to Pawtucket, RI, on November 25. 1946. I should mention that the "46" in the serial number is purely accidental, although it might appear to be a clue to the year the canoe was shipped.
Image of 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 will join or renew your membership to 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 join.
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.
"Value" is discussed here:
http://forums.wcha.org/showthread.php?57-How-much-is-my-old-wooden-canoe-worth
If you plan to sell the canoe, you may be wiser to sell as-is to someone who wants to restore it. If you were to pay for restoration, in today's market it's unlikely you'd get your money back. Restoring it yourself might be a different story. There are levels of making a canoe water-worthy, which include restoration, refurbishing, and duct tape... the latter being the least-expensive but possibly least satisfactory.
If you use the "search" function (above and to right) there's a lot of interesting information regarding the Yankee model.
Kathy
