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1957-58 18' Holiday.

Posted: Sat Sep 23, 2017 6:14 pm
by bjornbakken
I am working on a 1957-58, 18' Holiday that is throwing me a couple of unknowns. First, the hull number is a little odd. With the Mariners Museum's research dept. still closed, I'm not able to get info from them. The back seat frame is stamped with 18-HY-262. Hull markings on other Holidays seems to be H-18-XXX, same as written in the "Essential Guide" book. The boat is in all other aspects a very standard (though repowered) 18' Holiday.

The bilge is also varnished, it has it's original bottom and there is no signs of paint. The underside of the front and aft decks are painted with the common CC maroon color. Sales literature shown a green inside and bilge, something also discussed in a tread here on the Buzz.

Any insight is greatly appreciated.

Bjorn B.

Re: 1957-58 18' Holiday.

Posted: Sat Sep 23, 2017 11:01 pm
by jim g
bjornbakken wrote:I am working on a 1957-58, 18' Holiday that is throwing me a couple of unknowns. First, the hull number is a little odd. With the Mariners Museum's research dept. still closed, I'm not able to get info from them. The back seat frame is stamped with 18-HY-262. Hull markings on other Holidays seems to be H-18-XXX, same as written in the "Essential Guide" book. The boat is in all other aspects a very standard (though repowered) 18' Holiday.

The bilge is also varnished, it has it's original bottom and there is no signs of paint. The underside of the front and aft decks are painted with the common CC maroon color. Sales literature shown a green inside and bilge, something also discussed in a tread here on the Buzz.

Any insight is greatly appreciated.

Bjorn B.
By the late 50's they had started varnishing bilges on some of the models.

As far as hull numbers go. Some of the boats have mistakes in them. The plant worker picked up the Y instead of the X. I've seen it before. Also a lot of times the length number and the letter will be swapped.

Re: 1957-58 18' Holiday.

Posted: Sun Sep 24, 2017 4:56 pm
by Don Danenberg
Guess what?
The "perfection" of CC production, wasn't all that 'perfect'?

Despite what the CCABC judges say, CC production was all about sales and distribution.

Perfection wasn't all that important.., they didn't expect 'judged boat shows' some 80-years hence?

I have photos that show a 20-footer, stamped as an 18-footer, and the numbers also become wrong?

But..., just How can 'judges' Judge?

Re: 1957-58 18' Holiday.

Posted: Fri Sep 29, 2017 5:48 pm
by Doug P
I worked on an original custom that had 3 hull no's

Re: 1957-58 18' Holiday.

Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2017 10:52 am
by drrot
I recently bought a 1929 Chris-Craft 26' Triple cockpit project boat. When cleaning it out I found a floor board with 903 stamped in it. I started researching 903. Thanks to Terry Fiest who restored a 26' Triple and took lots of notes I found out 903 was a very special boat originally powered with a Packard Gold Cup racing engine. It is also still in existence! Back tracking a Scripps 202 that was purchased with the boat we found out the Scripps was installed in hull 898. I went back and found boards with 898 on them. All we can surmise was 898 needed to get out the door and they put pieces from 903 in it to complete it. Probably been there for 89 years. If you went to the ACBS show in Racine, WI I had it there. It's for sale along with a 28' in similar condition.
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Re: 1957-58 18' Holiday.

Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2017 8:22 am
by Greg Wallace
I can recall more than one instance where we found parts in one boat belonging to different hull number(s) of the same model boat(s), including an engine. In comparing notes with the other owners and other contacts we discovered all had a common denominator. All the boats had been either owned by the same owner or in the same shop at the same time. Parts had been shared, exchanged or scavenged with no regard for numbers or originality because at the time nobody cared.

Re: 1957-58 18' Holiday.

Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2017 5:09 pm
by bflaherty
Chris Craft has a long history of using whatever pieces were available that day for production. Many boats that were built near the end of series or at the start of a design change will have pieces that were not supposed to be used that year! Especially hardware! Many boats built in the late 40's left the plant with pre-war hardware. Makes identifying them that much more exciting :shock: