New Holland Literature in the 21st Century
by Gordy Schultz
The Full New Holland Line from 4wds to tractors and combines to balers: All On One CD
I have collected and sold farm equipment for many years. I have thousands of pieces in my collection and inventory. It is interesting to go through my files and binders and look at all the past offerings from equipment makers. The one draw back to literature collecting is the shear bulk of the brochures. As few as 10 or 20 pieces make a heavy stack of paper. Their are literally millions of pieces out there and it would be impossible to collect even one companies full product line. Or is it?
For 2004 New Holland has condensed all of its product forms to a pdf format and saved them to a CD. Every thing from the 10 hp New Holland ridding lawn mower to the 500 hp TJ 500 is now on CD. Each brochure from cover to cover has been placed on CD.
This new information offering is reminiscent of the old product buyers guides. These guides are one of my favorite things to collect because you can look back at the full years offering from Allis-Chalmers, International, John Deere's, Sperry-New Holland and so on. Full line buyers guides became popular with farmers in the late 1950s. Dealerships would mail the catalogs to farmers each year to introduce customers to new products. When you look back through a buyers guide you see your favorite tractors and combines as well as odd ball items you might never have known came from the brand.
As the number of farmers shrunk in the 1980s and 1990s, equipment manufactures began to do away with buyers guides. They were no longer cost effective. Deutz-Allis offered their last buyers guide in 1987, John Deere last appeared in 1993, CaseIH in 1986 and New Holland in 2001. The advent of websites also lead to the replace for the need for buyers guide, because companies could offer unlimited product information on the world wide web. The web offers away for tractor makers to reach customers 24 hours a day and eliminates postage and printing costs. New products can be added to a website same day with out waiting a year to print a new guide.
I miss the old guides. They offer a piece of history for each brand that is unmatched. New Holland has recaptured the old buyers guide concept and multiplied it by one thousand. I am excited about the new CD concept because it allows me access to every piece of NH literature for an entire year. All of those literature printed out would weigh 100 pounds. On CD it slips into a handy case and takes up a few inches of space while allowing access to hundreds of pages pictures and text.
The greatest advantage that I see for collectors is that the CD shows every piece of New Holland literature. Many products are regional and brochures on those products are not offered nation wide. Maybe you live in a region where tractors from 125 hp and down are big enough, or you live in the Canadian prairie where corn planters are unseen or in the corn belt where the CX Conventional Combine literature is not offered. Now you can see and have it all on CD.
I hope that New Holland continues this CD concept for 2005 and other makers like CaseIH, John Deere and AGCO also begin to offer CD guides. It is a whole new opportunity in collecting.
Collecting sales literature often leads to piles of brochures and space concerns. Thanks to the New Holland CD you can it all in a small compact space. You have variations, full product brochures and rarely seen specaility brochures all in one place. Below are a few examples.
Variations
Full Brochures Cover To Cover
Specialty Equipment
