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Putting the Classics to Work:
Collector uses 'old red' equipment in farm operation
By Bill Vossler With photographs
Duane Huschka of rural Brodhead, Wis., can make a claim not many others can: "Every furrow I've ever turned in my life has been with an International plow," he says. "I have never used any other kind of plow."
He's also a collector of red farm machinery who buys not only for nostalgia, but for farm use as well.
"All of them get used throughout the year," he says. "I wouldn't have a tractor unless I could use it." He also has a number of red implements, as well.
"It's just a matter of, well, this one hasn't been run for a while, so let's use this one today," he says. "I've found that rotating the tractors through the year in various seasons and various jobs works good. I don't keep batteries in all the tractors, because it's too many to keep all charged up. I might use one tractor for a month for certain jobs, and then I'll park it in the back of the shed and put that battery in another tractor, and I'll use that one for a while. For most of the tractors, changing the battery is a relatively easy job."
To Duane, there is no sound more beautiful than an M out in the field plowing, "with a nice steady load," he says, "not pulling the guts out of her, but just making her work good. That's my earliest memory of a tractor: me sitting in the sandbox and playing with my own little toy tractors, like most farm kids did, and watching grandpa out in the field plowing with an M. I love to listen to the sound of the M when it's working."
He has a couple of M's. He found his 1939 M after a 15-year search.
"I wanted an M with a three-digit serial number, and since the M serial numbers started at 501, it meant there were only 499 of them out there," he says. "I found a couple others, but the people who owned them wouldn't sell. This was the first one I found that I was able to buy. It has serial number 875, and all the serial numbers matched, so it's worth more to the serious collector. I bought it to collect, but also to use."
The '39 M, which he found in a junkyard 200 yards north of his home, has 36-inch back tires instead of 38-inch models. From what he's heard, most of the first 482 M's leaving the factory on rubber had 36-inch tires.
"I just recently found another M sitting in a junkyard with 36-inch tires on it, and I'm contemplating buying it," he says. "The engine is stuck on it, and it needs a lot of work. But the guy has it priced right, and it's not too far from here, and he'll deliver it. It's a 1939 M, but newer than the other one."