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Then, he saw an ad for a Kingfisher, Okla., Ford truck dealership in the High Plains Journal and it occurred to him that someone there might know of the Hancocks or the Goodens mentioned in the 1938 story. He called the dealership and asked to speak to "the oldest employee." That man told him the Hancocks were no longer living but George Gooden, grandson of the John Deere dealer, was still alive and could be contacted.
George Gooden appears as a boy in a photograph published with the 1938 article, sit ting with his brother on the gold tractor's hood. When English called him, he vowed to help find the tractor, and subsequently tracked down Beecher's telephone number and passed it on.
English telephoned the elderly Beecher, who said he still had the tractor but couldn't bear to part with it - at least not while he was alive. After Beecher's death, though, one of his relatives contacted English, to honor Beecher's request that the tractor go to the Indiana man.
When he hauled the remains from Oklahoma to his shop in Indiana, he knew a lot of work lay ahead; as it turned out, he put in 625 hours over the course of a year to restore the rusty relic to its original glory.
The green paint job probably helped camouflage the valuable tractor from other collectors, English says, but small bits of the gold color could be seen in nooks and crannies on the machine. He used those flakes to match to the current gold-leaf color, and paid out $4,000 for a new paint job.
To date, the restored gold D has not been started; English fears oil leaks would wreck the expensive paint. He protects the tractor by storing it in an insulated trailer inside an insulated barn, which helps keep it from "sweating." An electric winch helps him load and unload it at shows.
In July 2000 at the National Two-Cylinder Show in Fairview, Okla., the restored tractor made its official debut, returning to the state where it spent most of its life. Now, though, thanks to English, the tractor is a showpiece again, and not a "work horse," and that made its homecoming special indeed. FC
Brenda Kruse, author of John Deere Collectibles, is founder of www.bleeding-green.com, a Web site that serves as a community for collectors of John Deere memorabilia.