Thursday, April 8, 2010

Tractors or Antique Tractors?

Which is it? You know, this question always depends upon who you are and what you have. My dad used to tell me that anything over 25 years old is an antique. I don't know if I ever believed that or I would have to consider that even I am an antique.

On the other hand, some believe that when an item (such as an old tractor) has served its current day usefulness that the item would be considered old enough to be considered an antique. When a tractor fits in to this category, just a literal ton of people like to bring them back to life by restoring them. I love that! I believe however, that an old tractor is more closely considered an antique when it is nearing the 50 year old mark. Whether people restore these old pieces of machinery at 25 years old or nearer 50 years old, the love of doing it is where the rubber meets the road so to speak.

Clifford Ernst is just a perfect example of one of those folks. He has a fairly rare old tractor that he has restored back to life. It's a 1919 Moline Universal Tractor and not only is it very old, it is unusual in it's design (see photo).



Could you imagine finding parts for an old beast like this? Most likely there would be parts that would have to be specially made by hand or under contract to someone who could remanufacture the needed part. I don't know if that was the case for any part on Clifford's tractor or not, but you must agreee, he has done a beautiful job on this restoration.

In my book, this is a perfect example of an antique tractor.......... Old, unusual and beautifully restored to original condition. Well done!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

What a great tractor. We sold one back in May 2009 (unrestored) for $17,000 and another one in June 2007 that was an older restoration for 39,000. The Universal reminds me of the Happy Farmer in design. Both sharp tractors.
We usually categorize "Antique" as pre-1960's.

Anonymous said...

Great tractor,

I own an U650, bought it from Tractorul U650.