Hello, Scott,
I'll give you the information on Old Town 180108, but you need to re-check that serial number or look very hard at the part of the serial number indicating the boat's length, or measure the canoe... and also post pictures, not simply because we like 'em but because you may have something other than an Old Town.
Old Town 180108 is a
16 foot FG (fisherman guide?) model, completed in 1968. My computer is refusing to properly load my Old Town Catalogs CD, or I could find out exactly what that model is, but the record mentions the canoe was "foamed" and gives the weight at 85 pounds, which is a very heavy 16 footer (if we are talking guide-model canoes), so this may be the correct record. There's no reason, other than excessive fiberglass or another culprit, why a 16 foot wood/canvas would be a heavy canoe.
180108 has a notation after the deck that is unfamiliar to me... but Benson or another who knows Old Towns will interpret that. The canoe was originally dark green.
I'll keep pushing my computer to open the catalog and will add whatever I find there. Wanted to give you the information I have, so that you can determine if it fits your canoe. Old Towns have 5-6 digit serial numbers, followed by a space and the length of the canoe... so 180108 16 should be what you see on both stems.
The scan of this record is attached below-- click on it to get a larger image. 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 and anyone else reading this will join or renew membership in 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.php to renew.
Regarding fiberglass-- if you click on "search" above, and put in the word fiberglass, you should find many reasons why this is not a good thing to do to a ribbed canoe that originally had canvas. There may be a reason your canoe is heavy, and it would be interesting to figure that out.
Welcome to the WCHA!
Kathy