They were just IDs, nothing fancy, nothing special. They were employee badges worn by the multitude of factory, security, office, and contract workers at John Deere properties nationwide.
Pinned on hats and shirts, carried in wallets and purses, no one gave them much thought, unless, of course, you were sent racing back home to retrieve your forgotten identification.
Was it just a formality – an easy way to keep track of employees? Or was it a symbol of the psyche of the industrial revolution, wartime manufacturing security, or protection from industrial espionage?
Probably a combination of them all, your John Deere employee badge got you into your workplace, identifying you as a number rather than a name.
Today, these predecessors of the electronic security card are a hot collectible. While it depends on who’s doing the bidding and selling, it’s becoming increasingly unlikely to find a badge for less than $10. The price is more often $30, $50, even hundreds of dollars, depending on the rarity of a particular badge.
Avid John Deere collector Dale Lenz, Kellogg, Iowa, tells the story of his auction bid attempt for a rare John Deere Dain work badge from the 1950s. “I thought I could slip in and get it without anyone else knowing much about it,” he laughs. “Well, my last bid was $450, and I didn’t bring it home.”
Collector Dean Stump, Altoona, Iowa, a former John Deere Des Moines Works employee, concurs that prices are “goofy” when it comes to work badges. “You might pay $75 one day, and $35 the next at another place.”
Stump, whose collection numbers 30-plus badges, believes most are simply gone, either thrown in the garbage, or stashed in boxes and long forgotten by former employees and their families. “Workers were supposed to turn them in when they left employment,” notes Jessie Quinones, Rio, Ill., a former John Deere Plow Works employee and long-time collector. “But I know many ended up taking them home.”
Facts Are Sketchy
The most desirable badges, in Stump’s opinion, are round, pewter-type pins believed to be the company’s earliest employee identification badges.
Quinones speculates that these badges were in circulation as far back as 1915, and probably were used through the 1940s. The round badges feature the same bust of John Deere found on many collectible items celebrating the company’s 1937 centennial anniversary.
One from the Deere-Lindeman Co., a Washington-state manufacturer of orchard crawler-tractors that Deere purchased in 1945, is particularly difficult to locate. Taking special interest in the Lindeman badges are John Deere collectors Henry and Nicki Lindeman, Clark Lake, Mich., who supplied many of the photos that accompany this article.
Though their relationship to the Lindeman company is not known, according to Henry, having the same name was of great interest to the couple.
“We offered to trade the farm for one (badge),” he jokes. “Seriously though, we went so far as to advertise in the Yakima, Wash., newspaper and never got one response.”
They eventually did hit the jackpot on two different occasions, one at an auction, another at a collectors’ show. Coincidentally, the employee numbers are consecutive – 86 and 87.
Identification numbers on some of the early round badges appear to have been reground and restamped, which could indicate a move to a different department, Lenz speculates. Alternatively, he theorizes, “Maybe they were turned in when you left the company and then reissued with a different number for a new employee.”
The newer-style “leaping deer” badge appears to have been introduced with an official change in the company trademark in 1950. That year, the antlers of the deer were turned forward, and the tail was pointed upward to resemble the white-tailed deer.
Lindeman and Lenz identify John Deere’s blue Van Brunt Works badge and John Deere’s black or green Union Malleable Iron Works badges as extremely desirable due to their rarity.
All badges throughout the years featured the name of the company entity and a personal employee-identification number. Most “leaping deer” badges from the 1950s were silver and featured colors that differentiated employee shifts.
Lindeman surmises the badges that maintained their full color are more desirable, although longer-term employees probably wore those showing the most wear.
Special Badges
Other collectible badges include myriad versions of John Deere security pins, worn by those who protected John Deere entities at gates and other strategic plant locations. In addition, badges worn by members of John fire brigades, truck drivers, chauffeurs, and visitors have turned up here and there in collector circles. One obscure badge for the Deere & Co. Special Police surfaced recently.
A particularly large, silver badge reading “Mixed Car Warehouse” and “Chauffeur” is believed to be another of the earliest official company badges, according to Quinones, possibly dating as far back as 1915.
Badges were phased out in the 1960s with the advent of photo ID cards, and later, electronically programmed entry/ID cards.
One fact is certain: Each old badge is one-of-a-kind because no two employees had the same identification number at the same plant at the same time.
Another John Deere collector phenomenon? “Oh, yes,” concludes Henry Lindeman. “As more Deere collectors come on the scene, the harder badges are to find – just like everything else that’s John Deere-related.”
A Special Badge for a Special Role
Of the fervent collectors interviewed for the article on employee badges, none has come across a treasure like the one owned by Wayne Greenwood, Oswego, Ill.
During World War II, Wayne’s father, Lowell Beryl Greenwood, served the United States Army Auxiliary Military Police as a member of the Deere & Co. Special Police. The family now lovingly guards his police badge within a display of many work-related items that commemorate his years with the company.
As a guard at John Deere Plow Works in Moline, Lowell Greenwood was a natural choice for official army-security duty at the plant. There, a government contract transformed the plant from a plow manufacturer into a producer of M-72 projectiles for the war cause. In all, employees turned out 18 million rounds that measured 9 inches long and weighed 14 pounds.
An excerpt from an Oct. 26, 1942, letter to Lowell Greenwood from the War Department, Headquarters, Services of Supply, Washington, D.C., addresses the important role of the Deere & Co. Special Police:
“You have enlisted for one of the most vital jobs that faces an American who bears arms for his country. Our enemies are all around us. Where and when they will strike we cannot know. You men of the Auxiliary Military Police are our interior battle force. Our enemies are tricky, deceitful, smart, and dirty. They are out to wreck us and they will stop at nothing to do it. They never relax. They never quit. They are watching you, every minute you are on the job, waiting to catch you napping. Only by keeping constantly alert can you outsmart them.
“We cannot build a regular army big enough to guard every spot that is in danger. But we have called upon you men as Auxiliary Military Police to serve your country in this hour of need.”
The force became credible marksmen, even establishing a pistol team that also performed in friendly competitions throughout the area.
Though the younger Greenwood was only 8 at the time, he recalls his father’s commitment to his assignment. “He was proud of his role. I remember every week after church, my mother and I would take him his lunch. I still remember the smell of the railroad tracks and the Brown-Eyed Susans that lined the rails.”
He also remembers the words of his father, who, half seriously, half jokingly, used to say: “No enemy submarine ever got into Sylvan Slough on my watch,” referring to the Mississippi River area behind the factory.
Lowell Greenwood retired from his role as a main gate guard at John Deere Plow Works in the early 1960s.
Native Iowan Jules Irish is a freelance writer living in the Quad Cities. She has collaborated with Deere & Company on numerous assignments.
This article previously ran in the January 2003 issue of John Deer Tradition.
