Hi all, new here. I have a question about a confusing ID number on the side of my canoe. Got the canoe from a friend years ago, I believe he got it from his grandfather. I also believe it is a great Canadian but can’t be sure. The spot where the label was is now gone with the just the circle left from the adhesive. It’s a 16’ fiberglass canoe with aluminum trim. The number stamped on the side reads: TWJ011E57020. I have found it was from Toms Wholesale Bait And Tackle in Massachusetts. Other than that I am stumped. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
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Identify canoe number on hull
- Thread starter Logan1103
- Start date
Welcome to site membership, Logan! Feel free to ask any questions and post messages, photos and videos in our many canoe-related forums. We look forward to your participation in our community.
That number should be the 12 character hull identification number (HIN), which has been required in the US since 1972. While the format of the last four characters has changed somewhat over time, the general format is that the first three characters are the manufacture's ID number, the next five are a serial number, and the final four are the month and year of model manufacture.
Your purported HIN won't decode because of a problem with the 9th character, according to this HIN decoding site:
It will decode the TWJ manufacturer ID (in the right sidebar) and gives info about Toms.
The first three letters, the manufacturer's identification code, decode to indicate "Tom's Wholesale Bait and Tackle" of Middleboro, MA, identified as an importer of kayaks and canoes. They went out of business in February 2005. The last four characters of the HIN should denote the date of certification with the US Coast Guard but the letters in the HIN shown do not conform to any of the accepted HIN formats that have been used by the Coast Guard since 1972.
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