Pedal Tractor Doctor

Enlarge Image Image Gallery George Molus and his Case Case-O-Matic 800.

You could call George Molus the pedal tractor doctor, because he likes to fix up pedal tractors. 

"I'd rather buy one that's damaged, and has been used by a kid so the wheel is missing, and the pedal crank is out of place, the steering wheel is broken and the chain is gone," he says. "Those are the type that I really look for, the really challenging ones."

George, of St. Joseph, Minn., got started in pedal tractors because a buddy of his had collected for a number of years, "and I looked at it and thought it might be something I'd like to do," he says. "I was a retired machinist, so I had the capabilities and some of the machinery." He had worked for a large valve manufacturing company, and then had a shop of his own for a few years.

He bought his first pedal tractor in 1995 for $5 at an auction.

"It was in two pieces, so I went home and put it together," he says. "Then I found another one in four pieces, and put that one together." Those were John Deere 4440 and 4450 tractors.

Others weren't so easy to come by, as George discovered. Some four years ago, "I went to a friend's place for some lawn mower parts, and saw this pedal tractor sitting under the workbench," he says. "His son was grown and gone, so I asked if that pedal tractor was for sale, by any chance?"

It wasn't. George kept after him and after him, but still he wouldn't sell it.

"It just kept sitting there under the bench," he says. "I knew what it was a 1962 'Checkerboard' (so-named because of the decal design) Oliver 1800." He died, and the tractor went back to the son, but when George asked the son to sell the tractor, he kept getting turned down. "I said, 'I know it's your tractor, and someday if you plan on selling it, let me know.' That went on for years."

One Christmas George asked him again, "and he practically chased me out of the yard. He said, 'I told you when I'm ready to sell, I'll let you know.'" That summer, unfazed, George asked him again, and was turned down again. So he let it go for one more year.

This last June, George tried again.

"I was driving past his place, and he was outside reading the morning paper without a shirt on. I just drove in there, and he said, 'I suppose you came to buy that tractor.' I made him an offer, and he said, 'I think you just bought yourself a tractor.' Maybe he was hurting for money, but whatever the reason, I owned a tractor. I was lucky because it was only two miles from my home." All George needed to replace were tires and the pedal crank.

"The rest was salvageable." That tractor, the Oliver 1800 with the checkerboard grille, is one of the most-desired of all pedal tractors, George says.

"One in much worse condition than mine sold for $5,100 last year at Dyersville (at the National Farm Toy Show)."

The king of all the pedal tractors, however, is the John Deere Red A coffin-block pedal tractor.