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"I collect lots of farm literature, belt buckles, then the fullsize tractors, and the toy tractors, as well as construction machinery toys," he says.
He says he has drawers and drawers of farm literature, much of it Case and IH.
"It's part of being interested in every aspect of the lines," he says.
The Good Old Days
"I've got quite a fair amount," he says. "I pick it up locally from friends and neighbors, and at local swap meets and shows. The later stuff I get through dealers. I go back and read it, and reminisce, would be a good description of what I do with it. It's also handy for looking back through for different references and specifications, like tire types and that kind of stuff."
Full Circle
Daryl Miller of Battle Creek, Iowa, collects farm literature so he can follow the evolution of farm machinery.
"I find it real interesting, through the literature, to follow how farm machinery evolved over the years, and to follow how companies have evolved over the years, and the mistakes they have made," he says. "I've always been interested in history, and in studying it, so one of the things I find novel is how things make a full circle. A lot of ideas farm companies had 50 years ago are coming back again. Like years ago, all tractors had a wide front end, and then they went to the narrow, and now they're back to the wide front end tractor. Hay was made loose years ago - I remember that because I bucked hay years ago - then everyone went to baling hay, and then about a dozen years ago it went back to making hay in big stacks again, just in a different way. Farming has come full circle, and you can see it in the literature."
He finds collecting literature more interesting than buying toys or big machinery, because with the literature you can sit down and get information out of it.
"And the historical aspect of it," he adds. "I've been real fortunate to be able to buy about ten large collections of literature over the years. Literature is just very attractive to me. When I find a new piece, whether it's interesting or not, if I don't have it, it goes in my collection."
He says he has five drawers of lateral files filled with farm literature, and ten bookcases.