Old Shaw and Tenney paddle

[SouthernKevlar]

When I picked up a wood and fiberglass (Northland Canoe, most likely) this weekend, it came with a few accessories. They included three old split Feather Craft paddles, which had seen much better days, and a Shaw and Tenney 48" paddle. The S&T has some repairable splits and I am planning on refurbishing this one.

I did notice one thing different on this paddle. Whereas the S&T paddles that I have seen have the maker's name branded, if I recall correctly, into the blade, this one is stamped in red ink.

I wonder if any paddle collectors and historians in our group could tell me when S&T used the red stamp ,as shown in the attachments, on their paddles? I emailed Shaw and Tenney and received a reply from Neil Gutekunst, the current owner. In his reply he stated that it would have been pre-1980 but that is as much as he knows. That also puts it in the same era as the canoe.

If anyone can add to this information, it would help fill in the paddle"s age and settle my curiosity.

 

[Boatman53]

I would reach out to Shaw and Tenney and see what they think.
Jim

 

[SouthernKevlar]

Did that, please note 3rd paragraph. Glad we think alike.

 

[Boatman53]

Sorry I must have glossed over that paragraph.
Jim

 

[Benson Gray]

A similar topic came up a few years ago in the WCHA forum about some different tags. Steven Holt who sold the business to Neil made a guess as described at the first link below. The best person to answer this would be Paul Regan who sold the business to Steven but he has passed away. Their circa 1870s catalog attached below doesn't show any tags on their paddles but I suspect that all of these tagged paddles are much newer than that. The second link below has more information about the history of Shaw & Tenney if you are curious.

Benson

Shaw and Tenney paddles

I recently picked up two Shaw & Tenney paddles from Craigslist. One has a decal/sticker and the second has a silkscreen logo. An email from Steven Holt of Shaw and Tenney said that the decal paddle is from the 1920's or '30s and the silkscreen one is from the '50s or '60s. Posting just for...

forums.wcha.org

How old is it?

Founding dates and confounding dates A common question with any wooden canoe is "How old is it?" which doesn't seem like it should be difficult to answer. This is likely to be even more frequent question at the Assembly this year which is celebrating centenarian canoes that are over 100...

forums.wcha.org

 

[SouthernKevlar]

Thank you for the reply, Benson. I had planned on refinishing the Shaw and Tenney for my wife's use, but with the fairly clean labeling I will probably get some better photos to ad to my files before I monkey with it. If I can ascertain the production dates using this stamping, I hope to post it to an appropriate site as an aid to others.
I have tried to sign on to the WCHA forum for the past couple of days, but the "confirmation email" does not seem to reach me. I will delve deeper into this problem as time permits.

 

[Benson Gray]

the "confirmation email" does not seem to reach me.

It appears that your mail server and our mail server are not on speaking terms. I have been manually forwarding the confirmation messages to you so you may need to check your spam folder. Let me know if you need anything else.

Benson