Wood Song Canoe

WoodSong

New Member
Hi,

I am new to the site and just inherited a Wood Song Canoe from my father. The canoe was the second canoe ever built by Phillip Green for his dad. There was an article written stating my dad launched his business when he went into his shop and stated "I got to have this." The canoes run from 50-150k and I am not sure of the value. Phillip green is an artist when he builds his wooden canoes, but I just don't know how famous/valuable his work is.

Does anyone know where I could go to get an appraisal? The canoe was the first one ever sold by him, the second one he made.
 

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Thanks

The obvious place for an appraisal would be Wood Song Canoes and their web site at http://woodsongcanoes.com/contact_us.htm has the contact information. The information at http://forums.wcha.org/showthread.php?57 may also help although this is more focused on wood and canvas canoes. You may find the demand for wood strip canoes like this to be quite limited. Good luck,

Benson

Thanks for your quick reply. I believe the builder told my dad he would buy it back from my dad for 10k a few years ago. I don't know if that was the purpose of reselling or holding onto it for sentimental value.

Why would wood strip canoes demand be limited? Even if it was for display?
 
Why would wood strip canoes demand be limited? Even if it was for display?

My understanding is that nearly all of the Wood Song canoes are only used for display. The number of people who will buy a canoe for display alone is dramatically smaller than the group which buys a canoe with the intention of actually paddling it occasionally. You will also find a relatively large number of builders who make very nice wood strip canoes as shown at http://www.wcha.org/buildsupply/ and elsewhere. This is a classic example of supply and demand. I suspect that very few other people are likely to offer you anything close to $10K for your canoe so he may be your best option. Let me know if this doesn't answer your question.

Benson
 
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Honestly, if you can get 10K for that boat, take it. There are a couple people building super-high-priced strippers that get sold to people with more money than sense and no knowledge of canoes to be hung on their walls. However, these boats are absolutely impeccable building jobs, where cosmetics outweigh performance and any other factors. This boat is nice, but not that cleanly assembled and there are actually some amateur builders (occasionally even first-time builders if they have good woodworking skills) who have built boats just as beautiful, or more so.

On the open market of folks who actually buy and use canoes, you would probably be very lucky to get $5K for the canoe. There just isn't a big market for really expensive strippers. They're too easy to build and before dropping that kind of cash, an awful lot of people can and do simply buy the materials and build their own. They certainly aren't all perfect, or even beautiful, but some of them are drop-dead gorgeous and will rival any thing put out by the "canoe artists". We see traditional and antique canoes on this forum every day that are far more complex and which took drastically more skill and training to build than any fancy stripper ever will. I don't mean to rain on your parade, but reality is what it is. My suggestion is to either use your canoe and enjoy it, or sell it while you can if you have someone lined up who is willing to drop a lot of money on it. My gut feeling is that on the open market, it would probably go in the $3k-$5K range and it might take a while to find a buyer.
 
Example: A Recently built 17' Hazen Micmac built by Steve Stanfill, an amateur builder for his own use. Clean, elegant yet free of excesses trim weight, 55 lbs. and a superb design in the water. Plus, unlike the Wood Song, this one was built without staples, so there are no staple holes in the wood. In order to outclass some of the fine strippers being built by amateur and first time builders these days, you really have to have something exceptional.

IMG_1956_1.jpg
 
Here are images of my 1st two strippers.
Stapleless, no splices, inner/outer stems.
I sold them each for 1000 and felt good getting that.
Here in MN, there is always a number of strippers for sale.

Also, I suspect that most folks who want one (to paddle) want to build their own, which tends to keep the price down.

Dan
 

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Thank you for all the replies. The canoe world is very new to me, that is why I joined the forum. The knowledge I am already gaining from the fellow campers is wonderful! Will be in touch after I do some more research...:)
 
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