Serial Number 1378 17

Anne Schwab

New Member
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Hello! My fiancée and I just bought our first home. On a walkthrough with the sellers, they mentioned that they were leaving a very old wooden canoe behind in the attic as there’s no easy way to get it out of the attic.

The canoe needs to be refurbished, but we’re just trying to figure out what we’ve got here a friend tipped me off that it might be an Old Town sailing canoe. The serial number as best I can tell is 1378 13. Would appreciate any additional information!

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You may have a St. Louis canoe, from about 1941 to 1942 based on the serial number. The deck style and the carry thought indicate a St. Louis Meramec canoe. It’s hard to tell from your photos but these canoes have an arrowhead-shaped deck:

http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/meramec/deck.jpg

It looks like the seat bolts have diamond shaped heads, characteristic of Old Oown, but people have put these same diamond head bolts in other brands of Canoes over the years. But if you were a serial number were from an Old Town canoe, this would be a very early and distinctive Old Town, and none of its features suggest that.
 
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