the real old town

The Old Town canoe with serial number 48342 is a 17 foot long, CS grade, Otca model with western red cdar planking, open spruce gunwales, birch decks, birch trim, and a keel. It was built between 1917 and February, 1918. The original exterior paint color was orange with a 5/8 inch black stripe with what appears to be later known as Greek ends. A similar design in red is shown at http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/designs/design37.gif and was known as design number 37. It shipped on March 8th, 1918 to Springfield, Ohio. A scans of this build record can be found by following the link behind the thumbnail image attached below.

These scans were created with substantial grants from the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association (WCHA) and others as you probably know already. Additional information about the project to preserve these records is available at http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/records/ if you want more details. I hope that you will join or contribute 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.html to join.

If you are looking for a canoe with mahogany double gunwales and sponsons then this is not it. The image at http://forums.wcha.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=36 can show and tell you more about this type of gunwale. I have looked through the 4334x, 4384x, 4834x, 4884x, 14334x, 14384x, 14834x, and 14884x records and found that 148843 is the only one with mahogany gunwales and sponsons as shown below. Can you be more specific about the combination features, woods, and dimensions that exist on your canoe? Do you have any digital pictures of it that you can post?

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
 

Attachments

  • 48342.gif
    48342.gif
    45.2 KB · Views: 733
  • 148843.gif
    148843.gif
    34.6 KB · Views: 734
Last edited:
Back
Top