So What Now?

Shows are mostly over for this year....So What Now?

Sit back and enjoy the snow, ice and sleet? Not hardly! These are the times to get on the 'net and find those parts that you need for that restoration that you've been putting off all summer. There are a literal ton of web sites out there that sells or locates parts for antique tractor entusiasts.

Some of you are restoring old tractors and have an abundant list of resources for obtaining used or NOS parts. Others of you however, are restoring tractors or old pieces of equipment that are not so popular and have difficulty locating parts for them.

Many of these web sites cater specifically to antique tractor restorers and collectors needing parts. Lots of them are parts dealers and many are salvage yards. You can find sources for some of these organizations on the Fastrac Web Site in the parts resources pages that are broken down by state and/or country.

Winter is a good time to work on your restorations when generally you will have more free time to do it. Summer and fall seems to keep one busy attending shows or events rather than working on the restoration. I know this is not true for many of you but it is usually the way it works out for me! I tend to put off what could wait till later rather than miss a chance to get to an event somewhere during the summer months (this is better known as procrastination).

At any rate, if you're like me, you'll find more time to search the 'net for parts and get things fixed up in the winter so you can play more in the summer. To each his own!

All Brand Collectors

Almost all tractor collectors will eventually zero in on a particular brand to collect or restore. Notice that I said "almost"? That's because there are still those out there who will collect anything that comes with wheels or looks good to them. A few of years back, I lost a good 'ol buddy of mine who had more than a dozen old tractors and they were all over the place as far as brand of manufacture.

Charlie was 89 when he passed but from the time he quit farming and right up until the time he died, he kept on collecting and restoring them tractors. He had a 1929 Rumely 25-40, an old IH Titan, an SC Case, two John Deere A's and a G model, too. There was a complete restore of a Farmall F-20 and several others in the fold as well.

Here is a picture of Charlie's 1929 Rumely. You can read the entire story and see more pictures of this old tractor on the Fastrac Website here. Check it out, it's one of the cleanest and finest restorations that I have ever seen that gets fired up regularly.

I'll never get tired of getting myself around this old stuff and people like him that actually lived in the days when they used this stuff. Oh well. who knows - maybe someday!

Fall is Coming......Be Ready!

Fall show time is just around the corner. If you are in to old tractors, farm equipment, parts swap meets, flea markets, old hit 'n miss engines or just plain collecting, then this is the time of year for you. I know.......its not the only time of the year that you can find tractor shows, etc., but it is the favorite time for them for most of us.

Why? It is usually cooler at night and milder in the daytime and this makes for the best time to demonstrate your equipment without everything sticking to you because of the sweat! Sitting around at night talking tractors around a campfire somehow seems better than without one....and fall is the time of the year to really enjoy that. I see this almost every year in Matthews, Indiana at its Covered Bridge Festival which is centered around antique tractors and engines.



The site for this tractor show sits in a small valley along a river bank and literally at the foot of one of Indiana's oldest covered bridges (See photo above). In a lot of the past shows at this site, you can get up early in the morning and see a mist coming up over this small little setting. Some of it is coming from the cool air around the site with it's close proximity to the river, but most of it is coming from the hit 'n miss engines being started up in the cool fall morning air. Wow, what a site to see! If ever you get a chance to visit this show, you won't be disapointed.

Obviously this is not the only show on the road in the fall. There must be hundreds if not thousands of them around the country and the World. Most will have their own uniqueness. I would suggest that you try to find one and attend the festivities if you have never done that before. And.......if you have, then why not try to find a different one to attend than one that you have attended before. They are all different in lots of ways but are very much the same in what to expect.......If that makes any sense!

Collecting By The Seat Of Your Pants!

Collecting old antique farm equipment and related stuff can really be fun but whoever thought of just collecting the seats from some of this old stuff? Many collectors do however and it can be very interesting just to know the history behind these old cast iron implement seats.

One of the most interesting things that I found out about cast iron implement seats is that prior to the Civil War in the United States, farm implements were all walk behind, horse-drawn pieces of equipment. After the war was over, the munitions factories that were in place at that time were converted over into making seats for these horse-drawn implements. Some said that this was one of the most improved things that had ever happened in agriculture up to that time.

After this innovation occured, implements could be made so that the farmer could then have his feet free to operate levers at the same time he was driving the team of horses. This fact alone allowed equipment manufactures to add features incorporating these new levers. Extra tasks could be performed with all the new functionality in the machines.

The seat patterns, in the beginning, were made from wood and then cast into iron. There were many designs among the seats, some being very plain in appearance and others very ornate including lettering, etc. Almost all had some sort of holes in them whether it be simple round holes or gaps between any lettering that might have been present. This was done to allow water to drain through the seat thereby preserving the life of the seat against rusting while sitting idle.

There are well over 2000 different styles and types of cast iron seats known to have been made and collectors have preserved a tremendous amount of these seats from being destroyed. Some collect them and simply leave them as found and others will clean them up, paint them and display them. But, any way you look at it, this is a favorite attraction at some of the antique tractor shows that I have attended and will probably not disappear anytime soon.

It's kind of a neat thing.....preserving some of the history of farming and the pieces of equipment that have come and gone during the process.

Are Old Pedal Tractors "Real" Antique Tractors?

Well..........what do you think? If they're old (antiques) and they're tractors, why wouldn't they be? I think they are and I won't exclude them from the Fastrac Website. My brother-in-law has a tremendous collection of these old pedal tractors similar to the one shown in this photo. He has collected them for years. He still owns and operates a small farm in central Indiana where he uses mostly Allis Chalmers tractors and equipment, but since he has gotten older and has less energy than he used to, he got interested in the "Little Guys" so to speak.

It might surprise you how much some of these little old tractors are worth. Besides, if you are a person who is interested in the Antique Tractor hobby and didn't have the money to spare for the bigger tractors or you don't have the space to work on the larger ones, this might just be your connection to the hobby.

I'll bet more than a few of you have see these little old "play" tractors somewhere in your past as you were growing up. In fact, you can still see them pop up in garage and rummage sales occasionally. I have seen several of them being used as decorations in some of the Cracker Barrel Restaurants around the county. The last time I "Googled Up" the key words "Antique Pedal Tractor", the results were 64,100 pages with those words in the content. A lot of those results were for some of these units for sale on E-Bay.

Almost every Tractor Show or event that I see advertised will elude to a kiddie's pedal tractor pull event at the show. It's more than popular.....it's sometimes crazy! Lots of these old pedal tractors are being restored to original condition today and I think they have a real place in our hobby. My thinkin' is.......why not? If it's old and has a tractor attached to its name, it should get some ink!

To each his own is my motto. Whatever happens that gets our hobby more attention, the more it will serve us all. Think about it!

Hey....just getting a little concerned here!

Most of us are dealing with old antique tractors as a hobby and are hoping to just get a little fun out of the deal. But, knowing that the price of fuel is so high and looking like its going to continue to go up, can you imagine what's in store for the farmers of today? Pretty scary if you ask me.

That is not to say that the farmers are going to be the only ones that are going to have trouble surviving....we all will share additional costs across the board , too! But, if I can't go to work tomorrow in the plastics industry that I work in, I doubt whether that is going to effect too many people down the road. But with the farmers getting crops ruined or fields becoming inoperable because of flooding and bearing the rising fuel costs, etc, these problems will all translate to higher food costs at the market because of a tighter supply of everything coming off the farms......... Not to mention the increased costs of getting what products that do get harvested sent to the markets.

Our hobby isn't going to suffer too much because most of us are going to continue going to the shows and demonstratiing our old iron, etc. But, if things gets too tight on the fuel situation, we'll just stay closer to home and not fire up the 'ol girl so often. Right? Farmer's can't do that....they have to fire up the equipment or nothing else happens.

How in the world did we get into this mess? Have we been too complacent or content with the way things are? Could we have done something different? Who knows. I'm not trying to say anything in particular but it does bother me how the modern day farmer is going to survive.

I have heard comments lately about folks thinking of putting out a small garden. I have heard this from people who have never farmed or grown anything ever before in their lives. Hearing comments like that lets me know that people are truly getting concerned over the rising costs as well. I hope they succeed!

Maybe it'll get worse before it gets better. Maybe not. The only thing I know for sure, I'm not nearly so worried about our little old hobby as I am our little old country!

A Good Old Tractor Hunting Mystery Solved

Last week I received an e-mail from a seemingly fairly desperate fellow named Pat through the Fastrac Web Site asking for help in locating his grandpa's Farmall F-20 tractor. He asked me if I could help him find his father's F-20 that his grandfather bought new in 1939 (he thought).

In the e-mail, he goes on to say that the tractor was sold by his dad to Jimmy Belach of Walker, Iowa in the mid 80's and then at a later date, the tractor was sold to a Vince Gaffney of Fairfax, Iowa around 1993 or so. Pat said that he had no phone number or any other information on Mr. Gaffney but that he was extremely interested in locating the tractor which had become very important to him as of late.

I responded to him that I would make a post to try and get the word out to Fastrac's viewers and that we might just get lucky enough to get a response from someone.

Before I could get the post made that I promised Pat, he e-mailed me back to say that his family had farmed in Garrison, Iowa where his grandpa had purchased the F-20 and that his dad & grandpa had farmed the land there until they had a disagreement about expanding the farm operation. At that time (around 1965) the farm property was sold because of the disagreement and the tractor was given to a friend of the Belach family (Mr. Belack, the friend, died in 1990).

While all of that was happening, Pat found himself working in both Colorado and Kentucky but had that old tractor on his mind by entertaining the idea of locating the tractor and restoring it to its original condition. Pat said that he started looking for the old tractor about two years ago and was finally able to track down the Belach family. After he contacted me for help in locating the tractor and, as I said previously, before I could respond to him......he e-mailed me over the weekend to say that Mr Belach's widow called him last week. This was after about 18 months since he had contacted her and she told him that she had found the tractor and got the Gaffney fellow's location and number for him.

He said that when he went to see the tractor that it had the original rubber with a "closed" steering box and a "from the factory" hydraulic kit along with a live PTO. I personally didn't really get to help Pat find this tractor but was really pleased that he decided to share the news with me. I e-mailed Pat again to ask him if he was going to go get the tractor then and he responded by saying "Yep.... That's the plan!"

It just goes to show that if you want something bad enough and you put some action to it, sometimes you'll get what you want. I enjoyed the story! Thanks Pat, Good luck with the restore!

Old Iron Lawn Ornaments

One thing I have found across the years from placing myself in and around old tractors and equipment, is that it makes you completely aware of things around you as you travel. For instance, if you are on your way to play golf at a rural golf course, are you looking at the sides of the roads for turf that will be similar to what you will face on the course once you arrive? Of course not. Your subconscious mind is forcing you to see if there are any old cast iron implement seats tossed in the side ditch, or rusting tractor carcasses in the fence rows.

I find myself constantly scouring the lateral sights along the road while I'm driving and very specifically for these types of "finds." (not the golf course stuff.... the old tractor stuff). I must admit though, that I rarely stop at most of the discoveries. Most of them I have seen before. Some of them will make you stop though. I found one of these spots today that I thought that I would share with you. It just happens to be and old International F20 Tractor that is being used as a beauty spot decoration at a local landscape nursery.

If old antique tractors or implements are not being restored or being taken to scrap iron dealers, you can bet that a lot of this old stuff is being used as landscape decorations. You've probably all seen the old horse drawn sickle bar mower or two row corn planter with all new paint adorning the front yard of more than one country farm house. I know I have!

One thing is for sure, I am more in favor of the lawn ornament usage than I am of the scrap iron pile because once the piece is gone to the scrap iron pile, it's gone forever! I thought this was a pretty cool use of and old tractor in a setting where it will always be on the job.

A Great Old Cat!

I posted earlier about the relationships that are built when you get involved within the hobby of antique tractor collecting or restoring. One of my favorite buddies that I had acquired a fairly close relationship with a few years back, (Maris Hall) got me very interested in an old caterpillar 15 tractor that he has. I had never driven a Caterpillar tractor of any kind before meeting him but because of the friendship that grew out of that meeting, I finally got the chance.

Maris brought his 1929 Cat 15 to the Matthews (Indiana) Covered Bridge Festival about 6 years ago and I was able to snap some photographs of that old tractor. You can view them and some of the history behind his acquiring of the old tractor and what he had to do to get it up and running on the regular Fastrac web site. This story is quite interesting to read if you like old cats.

Maris asked me that day during the festival if I would like to "take the old girl" for a spin and I, not being one to turn down too many chances at doing that kind of stuff, naturally obliged him. That "spin" " turned out to be most of the rest of that afternoon. The caterpillar was a very different experience for me in that I had never driven any old tractor (and that has been quite a few) that had no steering wheel. It was very cool the way you could make that old machine turn on a dime so to speak!

Strike up conversations with folks when you go to these types of events..... you never know what kinds of friendships can be made and what can happen within the resulting relationships.

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.