- Related Articles
- Banking on Common Sense
- BETWEEN THE BOOKENDS
- On the Cutting Edge
Duane's other M (a '41, serial number 37104) is a family heirloom that his grandfather bought new.
"By the casting dates, it was built about June 1941," he says. "My grandfather had bought an H new in 1940, but he soon found it wasn't big enough for him, so he went to the IH dealer Demonstration Day where they were baling hay, and that M was being used to demonstrate on the baler."
He wanted to buy the M, but didn't have the money. Later that year, the same dealer had a corn picking demonstration, using that M to pull a new two-row, pull-type corn picker.
The first tractor Duane bought was an M.
"I bought it in 1974 in a farm auction, and had it until 1990, when I traded it for a new corn picker, which I needed more at the time than I needed another tractor," he says. "I wish I hadn't traded it off, though."
He also has a bunch of old IH implements, including a three-bar horse rake he bought for $25 from his uncle in 1974.
"It's the only one I remember him having," he says. "I used to go over and help him put up hay, and I used to rake hay with that rake. When he quit farming in 1974 due to health reasons, I bought that rake from him. I've used it every year since then."
His uncle had purchased the rake used (originally it was a horse-drawn rake), and converted it to tractor use by cutting off the tongue and bolted irons on the end. Last summer he found an owner's manual for the rake in a flea market.
Duane is a stickler on owner's manuals. He tries to have one for every piece of machinery on the farm. He's not just a collector: he actually reads each one.