|
To expand a little on CLW's reply, there are indeed several sources of information. First is "John Deere Tractors 1918-1976" (commonly called "the brown book") which was published by Deere - it states that the 1945 model year began with 548352. Second is "John Deere Tractors 1918-1994" ("the gray book") which was also published by Deere. In the preface it is stated that many changes have been made in the serial number lists, particularly for tractors built between 1935 and 1950. Apparently the writers of this book were more thorough in their research and dug into handwritten records at Waterloo and Dubuque more deeply. In this book, the 1945 model year for the A began at 542700, supporting the idea expressed here about the serial numbers that were scrapped. It is my opinion that the "John Deere Tractor Data Book" used the information from the old "brown book", published in 1976, and may be a little suspect. J.R. Hobbs' information agrees with the "gray book", and is probably right, since he had access to Deere archive information until just a couple of years ago.
As Doc mentioned in his reply, the Two Cylinder Club's info is quite accurate, and, although I don't have that info, I would suspect it agrees with Hobbs, as they (2-Cyl) also have had access to archive info.
Long answer to a short question, I guess, but I would go with info from Hobbs, the "gray book" and 2-Cyl Club - they will generally be more accurate than the Data Book. Stan
| 
