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My 1/64 display is a story of how I got into farm toy to collecting? I grew up in South Western (Red Bud) Illinois on a very small hobby farm. We had big farmers (big at that time - 400+ acres) all around us. We helped them put in their crops, do hay and harvest the crops, I even shoveled more than my share of manure for them. I was friends .jpg) with many of their kids who all collected 1/16 scale farm toys. I didn't have the money nor the space back then to start a collection like that, so I bought a few 1/16 pieces and I got a few more for Christmas and Birthdays.
After I graduated grade school Ertl changed all that. In the summer of 1980, my brother and I found our first 1/64 scale Ertl tractors at Wal-Mart. We bought everything we found. We then joined the Replica magazine and found the classified ads in the back for toy dealers and we were hooked. We now could afford and had room enough to buy all that Ertl made in 1/64.
In 1993, my Dad purchased 80 acres in North Central Missouri (Macon) as a retirement farm. I was married by then and well into my Air Force career, so my farm toy collecting had lapsed some for many years. By Late 1993 fueled by the prospect my Dad was going to start farming again, I began collecting again, so in 1994 I purchased several of the Farm Country sets and put together my first, very crude display on a sheet of plywood in our spare bedroom. It was short lived, by the middle of the next year I had to dismantle it before our move from Colorado Springs to Los Angeles. After arriving in LA we started having children, so with extra space a luxury, I began selling off parts of the collection and almost all the buildings. In 2001, we returned to Colorado (Fountain this time) and shortly after I started following the chat on Toy Tractor Show.com. Guys were posting pictures of their displays and customs, and my three kids were showing an interest in Agriculture (farm toys, growing plants, real machinery) so I received permission from my wife to build them a display in a spare bedroom, one that the kids and I could share.
Most time the children play on the display with their equipment (mostly green with a sprinkling of red) and then every so often they clear off their stuff so I can put my Blue equipment on and use it for a couple weeks. I modeled the current display after several farms I grew up around and worked on back in Southern Illinois. It reminds me of the old days.
Many ask why I go Blue? Our first tractor was a Ford 9N (we still have it), we worked it hard on our small piece of property, we farmed corn on about 10 acres of it, and a couple acres more we had a garden. At that time none of our neighbors had Fords, we were the unusual ones. Over the years we had to run to our local Ford dealer to get parts for our tractor, so every time I would go through the lot sitting on all the tractors and watching the guys in the service area. In 1971, while getting parts at the Ford dealer, they had a 1/16 scale toy of the 8000 with a big blue wagon sitting on the shelf. I had been around the tractor a lot on the lot, but now I could own my own version of it, so I asked Dad if I could have it. We didn't have a lot of money while growing up so he almost always said no. But to my surprise he said yes. It became my favorite toy, I took it everywhere with me. A few years later one of our neighbors traded in one of his Massey Ferguson's for a used 8000 with the recessed front axle, it was his biggest tractor at the time. I rode with him as often as I could, and when I couldn't I sat and watched him work the fields.
A few years after, two separate farmer friends to the east of us each bought a Steiger when they expanded their acreage. One was light green and the other in beautiful blue. I don't recall the exact number, but it was an FW, he owned a hog farm and used it for all his heavy tillage, it was a sight watching that large a tractor out in the fields at that time. Sorry to say, I never had the opportunity to sit in it, I did however get into the light green one once when he was working his fields.
In high school and college, I worked at a sawmill (and they farmed 250 acres part-time) and I became good friends with a part-time farmer (Franky - 92 acres) who worked there too. We became best friends (he was my best man in my wedding), we hung out together a lot and I would help him on his farm after work and on the weekends. He ran mostly red, then about 15 years ago he bought a JD and just a few years ago I was able to convince him to purchase a FWA Ford NH tractor. He at first was very skeptical, but now he can't praise it enough. When I can, I still travel back to help him and my Dad on their farms.
After seeing the orange AGCO display Nick and Dick did in The Toy Tractor Times with all the Allis type equipment and tractors, I decided that is what I was going to do, make mine in my favorite color. Up until then I had been considering older IH's or Olivers, then when scale models came out this last fall with the Ford 8000 in 1/64, the plan was sealed, I knew I could custom build all the versions accurate enough for me from their basic tractor. Then it just became a matter of researching all the rest of the equipment and the proper decals and painting. My favorite tractor is of the Big Blues (8000, 8600, 9000 and 9600) and any of the FW's. I use all of them on the display.
I hope my work with Fords will inspire other builders to use their favorite brands on a display just the AC Guys helped me. When I look at my display I look back at the glory days of Ford when Big Blues had Ford plows, disks, mowers and balers to pull. The display has been a great way to capture that history.
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