Grumman Canoe Serial Number Lookup
Elida Obrian
Go to their website. Search for "Grumman Canoes", and you will end up at the Marathon Boat Company (or something like that), which is their new name. Find the canoes that look like yours (ignore the painted trim though, and perhaps the exact type of seat construction). If it's a double-ender (pointed on both ends), it will probably be one of two models, the "standard" and the "whitewater". Note that the whitewater model has 7 ribs and shoe keel, while the standard has either 3 or 5 ribs, I can't remember which (I think 3), and that will help differentiate them if you can't figure out the keel difference immediately (but I think they explain the keel differences pretty well if you look around on the site). Anyway, the website will tell you the weight for either of those two models.
There MIGHT be a lightweight version of the 17-footer too, or perhaps there was in the past. "Plaidpaddler" knows all that stuff, and he may show up and give you the possibilities, but I have a hunch this is all the info you will need, except for the year of manufacture, which really doesn't matter (it has no effect on the current selling price unless it's nearly new, and perhaps not even then).
There's a website that de-codes boat serial numbers, but I don't know what it is. Someone probably will post info on that.
But, if it is currently registered, the year of manufacture is likely on the registration as well. The registration number should be able to be cross referenced to find the record of registration on the canoe and what year of manufacture it was previously registered with.
Gruman canoes were made originally by the Grumman Aircraft company, but were sold to OMC which closed the factory very abruptly. It was then operated as Marathon canoes, and finally the canoes are once again called Grumman. Many of the original Grumman boat records did not survive thru the changes of ownership and the people who could decode the original model/serial numbers are long gone. Just rest assured your canoe is an original from before the existence of HIN numbers. and will last another 75 years with reasonable care. Grummans assembly methods were perfected making carrier based airplanes powered by radial engines, the toughest testbed for riveted aluminum construction.
Since its been a great many years since I've gone out my first concern was whether I could even load the canoe on a vehicle by myself. My 15 foot Grumman canoe weighs 54.3 pounds which is fairly light as Grummans go. I only discovered the reason for this recently. The internet as we know it didn't exist when I first got the canoe and in all the years since I had never done a search on the boat's serial number to learn anything about it. As it turns out, according to this very helpful thread on iBoats.com my canoe is a very early example of Grumman's 15 foot model and its number suggests it was built sometime around 1948! Given that this 70 year old canoe has spent most of its life being abused by boy scouts or left to the vagaries of the weather by yours truly its in amazingly good shape. These very early Grumman canoes were lighter than Grumman's later models because they were constructed of thinner aluminum sheet. The number on the plate confirms that mine is .030 thickness. Sometime in the early 1950s after receiving lots of complaints about how easily the boat's hulls were getting ripped open or otherwise damaged by river rocks they changed to use .050 thickness aluminum which they used as standard for decades thereafter and which made those later models considerably heavier.