the wonderful 50's 60's, questions for all

Hey, that's just what I've been doing the last couple years. Started just putting up hay last year, and then added corn and oats this year. A 70 for a tractor and an almost full line of JD equipment from the 50's and early 60's. The old stuff can all be found for a low price (here in southern MN), you just have to pass on the worn out stuff, and walk away from the people that think they're old equipment is worth a fortune.

I'm only doing 35 acres as a part time job, but it's been fun.

Get the two books that Farmerboybill mentions, they are invaluable for identifing all the old pieces.

Good Luck!

Here's a list of what I've got:
JD 70
JD 60 (non-functioning, being restored..slowly)

55ABH 3bottom plow
10' RWA disk
drag sections, 2 of them - don't know the model #
290 corn planter
8' FB grain drill
200 front mounted 2 row cultivator
414 Rotary hoe
10 side mounted sickle mower
21 hay conditioner
14T baler
30 combine
45 combine with 2 row corn head and 10' grain head.
227 corn picker with 50 sheller
barge wagon with 953 running gear.

Then the bale elevator and the hay rake that I have are not JD, will trade them out when I find some equivilant JD ones.

Used on 35 acres to grow corn, oats and hay on weekends and evenings. It's kept me very busy this past summer.

I like using the old methods from the 50's. Although, the equipment takes a little more futzing, and I try to stay ahead of things breaking by replacing worn out parts before they break.

It's been quite the learning experience for me. Not sure if it'll stay the way it is or if I'll get more land and grow.

andrew

I am assuming that you are intending to farm a very small acreage.

The first thing I would ask about is do you have the real estate for your operation. In my area (NW IA) this would be by far the most difficult thing to lock in unless you are made of money. Recently a 40 Acre piece with a $40000 building brought $5025/A in my area. There was no housing development value here. I am sure values are different in your are but renting is immposible here unless you have a history.

Enough of that rant. Personally I would suggest trying to get the crop custom harvested and delaying the combine purchase. Talk with the neighbors about this. Remember when you harvest you will also need to get the grain to town or the bin somehow this means wagons or truck also and these would be provided by a custom cutter. The neighbors should be able to either provide good suggestions here or maybe you could hire one of them to do this.

I would suggest at bare minimum you will need a tractor, planter, some sort of primary and secondary tillage implement and a row cultivator. For the day the JD 494A was hard to beat. For tillage I would suggest a disk for starters. These can do both primary tillage (fall after harvest) and secondary tillage (before the planter) satisfactoraly. I think the JD BW would fit this bill.

The jobs done by these implements would be tough to hire done as opposed to the harvesting which should be fairly easy to get hired out.

You will probably need to have some sort of chemical weed control program. I would suggest that you definatly hire this one out along with the fertilizer. Your local elevator or agronamy supplier should be able to help you here. I wouldn't even think of doing this yourself as most chemicals require licensing to purchase. I do my own chem application but I am in this game to make a living.

One real big advantage you will have is that after you purchase your tractor you will mostly be competing against the iron buyers so you should be able to get most of your implements fairly reasonable.

HTH

jt

I'm only 4 years older than you and don't have the experience you're looking for. What I can do is recommend you pick up two books - John Deere Tractors and Equipment Vol.1 - 1837-1959 and Vol 2 - 1959-1990 by Don McMillan and Roy Harrington.

The two authors are very obviously towing the company line, though. They never say anything remotely bad about any of John Deeres more questionable ideas like the hydrostatic FWA on the 20-40 series tractors. In the appendaces of the books are specs, years of production, nebraska tractor tests, and serial numbers on tractors.

NE cowman's advice makes good sense. Go to auctions and sorta get a sense of what things are going for. Once you feel that you know the market a little, you'll start to see whats going cheap and what's going high. I could kick myself for not grabbing a Ford 9N a couple months ago that went for $1250 at an auction - tires were so new, they still had nipples and paint was perfect. I coulda turned it around for 3500 easy. Of course the winning bidder mighta bid me up to 3400, but I'll never know. Starting out, it pays to be color blind.

Also, let it be known you're looking for old stuff. I was talking to a guy I work with about my search for a 12a in working condition. He mentioned that his uncle had a 30 sitting in his shed and I expressed interest. In the end, the uncle gave it to me for the courtesy of getting it out of his way. It's not showroom new but I did cut Grandpas little bit of rye with no problems.

Good luck with your search.

1. Check on parts availability, thats where owning Deere equipment is an asset. They won't be closing their doors in a few years or be bought out by another company.

2. You can never tell with older equipment until it's run. Seals that are dried out will begin to leak under load, and so on. Sometimes it's difficult to know what's in good shape and whats not when you have little experiance. You don't want to spend your time fixing machines instead of developing your farm if possible. Plus they can turn into money pits to fix. Found out as much as possible before buying. If you can buy a piece and get 2-3 years use out of it without repair that's ideal. When you do buy something that needs a major repair or that becomes evident after it's bought, you usually don't get your money back out of it when selling. One of the pitfalls of buying, with the intention of trading up later.

I admire your goal as well, wish you success.