Looking for help deciphering boat serial number

[spunkymonky]

I have a 15' fiberglass boat I'm trying to license and looking for help to decipher the serial number stamped in the transom. Nothing I have come across seems to help but maybe somebody here can figure it out or has seen something similar. It is a Marlin Glascraft boat made sometime in the mid '70's in B.C. from what I gather. The small rectangle molded into the transom reads "4V 4125" which makes no sense, there has never been a license number on the bow of the boat so this is all I can go by.

 

[Alumarine]

That may be it.
There may not have been a requirement for a modern HIN at that time.
Have you tried to register it with Transport Canada?
They're pretty easy to get along with as a rule.

 

[SkaterRace]

Have you gone through fiberglassics online cataloge and checked to see if you can visually match up the boat to the year and model. That would be a good place to start. Also just google the brand and then the serial number and see what shows up.

 

[spunkymonky]

I have searched and searched with not much luck. The only thing I've been able to discover is that the company is MARLIN GLASCRAFT 1974 LTD the company was in business from 1975 until 1988 and the MIC is ZMG which appears nowhere on the transom. The strange part is it seems the company started after 1972 so that number should be in a standard format but of course it is not. I'm more curious than anything as I'm sure I can sort out licensing without it but was hoping maybe somebody had seen a format like that before or had some insight.

 

[southkogs]

Dunno' about these guys, but on my '72 Silverline the SN really was indecipherable. In fact, in some article I read along the way even the president of Silverline said that he never really figured out their serial numbers.

So, it may not mean anything.

 

[Alumarine]

This is a quote from Transport Canada
"Pleasure craft built or imported in Canada after August 1, 1981 are required to have a Hull Serial Number (HIN)."

 

[shrew]

The HIN system was introduce in November 1, 1972. Any boat built before 11/1/72 would have a proprietary HIN system. This only applies to vessels built in the US. The HIN format changes again slightly in Aug. 1, 1984 when they changed the format of the last segment to the year of certification and the last two digits of the year of manufacture.

Southkogs, your Silverline boat would have been manufactured in Moorehead Minnesota and was more than likely pre-November 1972 using Silverlines proprietary numbering format. I can't imagine why the CEO would need to know the system, though it makes him sound like an idiot for admitting it.

The BC boat owned by the OP wouldn't follow this HIN format.

 

[southkogs]

Southkogs, your Silverline boat would have been manufactured in Moorehead Minnesota...

It was.

... and was more than likely pre-November 1972 using Silverlines proprietary numbering format.

It was.

I can't imagine why the CEO would need to know the system, though it makes him sound like an idiot for admitting it.

More that he (one of the original builders in the launch process of the company) found their system a little obscure in hindsight.