Any Old Iron Will Do - Or Will It?

For some collectors, "any old iron will do" is a statement that would be the only statement to make. To these people, If you find anything related to the bygone days of farming, its made out of iron and you can haul it home, its worth collecting. I don't know of a ton of people that would just haul any old piece of farming equipment or apparatus home automatically. I can tell you though, that I would bet that almost anyone who is an old iron collector would at least take a serious look at the piece.

This is part of the fun of collecting! Finding a piece of old iron whether it be a broken down F20 Farmall in a wood-lined fence row with trees growing up through its frame rails or an old cast iron water pump that got its supply from an old windmill aeromotor, the discovery is what it's all about. Do you think for a moment that a true collector of old iron wouldn't at least take a look?

It never ceases to amaze me what shows up at the swap meets and tractor shows. I have never been to one yet that I didn't see something that I could not identify, and upon asking the owner what it was, to be not confronted with a smile or smirk as the identification was made for me.

Most of what you see at these events of course, centers around the old tractors and that is totally another story. Most collectors do eventually zero in on a paticular tractor brand to collect if tractors are the only things being collected........ note I said most! However, I know several (and you probably do too) that don't even care what the brand is, they just know its old, its a tractor and it needs a home so therefore they collect them.

So what am I saying? Only that if everyone collected the same stuff, the same brand, the same age and lined them all up in a row, this hobby wouldn't even exist! The diversity is what makes it all tick and is the exact reason that I love it so much. As long as I can still get to the shows and swap meets, that probably won't change very soon.