Wooden canoe newbie. Serial number search

Hdanziger

New Member
Hello! I just purchased a beautiful wooden Old Town canoe, serial number 8348. Any information would be so greatly appreciated!

This is a wonderful site, and I'm looking forward to sharing my love of our boat with so many others!
 
The Old Town canoe with serial number 8348 is an 18 foot long, AA (or top) grade, HW (Heavy Water) model with red western cedar planking, closed mahogany gunwales, mahogany decks, mahogany thwarts, mahogany seats, spruce finish rails, a keel, sponsons a floor rack, and four cane chairs. It was built between December, 1907 and May, 1909. The original exterior paint was dark green. It shipped on May 24th, 1909 to Cincinnati, Ohio. A scan showing this build record can be found by following the link at the attached thumbnail image below.

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 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 renew.

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.

Benson
 

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Old Town Canoes typically have a 5- or 6-digit serial number, so look to see if there might be a digit or two in front of the 8. Look on both stems; sometimes the numbers are clearer on one end than the other. Also look for two digits that are separated from the main set of digits, which should correlate to the length of the canoe, i.e., "17" would be found on a 17 foot canoe.

Pictures will help identify the canoe. Decks, stem profiles, seats, thwarts, ribs... We like pictures of canoes!
 
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