1/64 BIG BUD’s Part 2

In this months article I will cover the earlier series of Big Bud tractors. These will include the HN & KT series. These toys were produced by Martin Fast for the Toy Farmer magazine. They all came in an open front box and were not mass produced as compared to a Ertl toy. A majority of these were white in color.

Shown below is the fourth one in the series was the KT-525 Bicentennial edition that had duals and dual chrome mufflers.

In 1993 there was a HN-320 with duals produced for the KFYR toy show. In my opinion this is the hardest Big Bud tractor to find in this series. It is 1 of 156 and has the cab engraved.

For the 1996 Great Falls Montana toy show there was a HN-250 made with singles.

In 1999 there was a new set produced. These both came in a box that had a red lining. All of the other Big Buds came in a box with a black lining. These two models were a KT-525 with duals and only one muffler & a HN-360 with duals.

The latest Big Bud to be made was a KT-450 with duals made for the 2004 KFYR toy show. This was a very limited toy that came in a plain white box.

In addition to the white Big Buds there were also several produced in color. The first of the colored ones are the Gold or yellow colored ones. They had HN-350 decals and came with duals. There are actually three different yellow ones. The first one made was a lemon color instead of gold. This was a mistake version and there were only 200 of them produced.

The next one was the corrected version of the yellow one which came in gold. There are actually 2 different colors of the gold ones. It is hard to tell from the picture below but the top one in the picture is lighter in color. The lighter one is a lot harder to find. There were 800 of the gold ones made all together.

After the yellow ones were produced there was the Bafus Blue edition made that was named after a farmer who had a real on painted blue. This one supported a HN-360 decal and had duals as well. There are at least 5 different versions of this model. All of the variations are how the toy was painted. Some have all blue cabs some have white and blue cabs and some even have white stripes on the hoods.

For the Millennium edition of the KFYR toy show there was another Bafus Blue toy made. It was a KT525 with duals and a detail kit. There were 300 of these produced. These also had the red lined box. I have found 2 box variations of this tractor. Can you tell the difference?

The last tractor I will discuss in this article is a Friggstad. Although it is not a Big Bud the Big Bud castings were used and painted orange with Friggstad 665 decals. This one was produced for the KFYR toy show in 1995. There were 202 of these produced and is another very hard to find version.

I hope you enjoyed and possibly learned something from this article. Be sure to check out part 3 of the 1/64 Big Bud articles next month as we will discuss the last series of Big Buds including the 440 & 500 tractors as well as the 747. If you have questions or know of something I have left out please email me at Daltonsfarmtoys@iowatelecom.net