Old family (IH) photo

[dfrisk]

STEVE - There's something wrong with that brand new New Idea picker..... all the ears in the wagon elevator don't have any husks left on them!

Sorry.... too many years being around the old 2M-E picker. Certain times of the day in certain varieties of corn it would pick clean, otherwise would leave at least two layers of husks on all the ears. Neighbor had a mounted NI picker and it picked real clean too.

I like the '59 Ford, was probably an F750? My Uncle had a '56 just about like that '59. Great farm truck. You can tell your's never sat out much, the paint shines like new in all the pic's.

I like the pic of the 1486 too. That was my favorite paint style, never cared for the Red Power Specials, the tri-stripes. What year tractor was it? I was at FARMALL for all except the first 5+/- months of the 86-series production.

Think they started building 86-series in late April or May, I started in the shop on 10-11-76. The bump up to 175 tractors/day on two shifts got me in the door, got my 60 days in to get call-back rights with the UAW, got laid-off mid-Jan '77 when they went back to 150/day on one shift.

 

[sblunier]

Denny,

Pretty sure it's a 77 or 78, leaning toward 78. Notice the wheel wrench still strapped to the frame?

 

[sblunier]

My Grandfather was VERY PROUD of IH equipment....

Denny,

510 Massey combine and another view of the Ford...

 

[mpatterson]

These pictures are awesome!! Thanks for sharing guys. Certainly a walk down memory lane, IH memory lane. Wouldn't it be cool to have a movie of these pictures streaming for hours on end in your office at work or on monitors in the IH Dealers now. Show how farming used to be, how farmers got it done with smaller equipment and still were happy and supported their familes just the same. I bet if some kids seen these pictures now a days they would be in awe that anything was ever done "back then". Actual manual labour!

Look forward to seeing more pictures!

 

[wshytle]

I wish I had some pics of my grandfather and his equipment. He was a tobacco farmer in Sampson county, NC. I do remember he had an International pick up and a Farmall cub for the family garden. He used mules for the tobacco so he didn't have a large farm but then it didn't take much to make a good living back then either.

He died in the early 70s when I was in boot camp. I was the only grand son not present because Uncle Sam wouldn't let me go home for the funeral. He use to love "professional wrestling" and watched it every Saturday night. He had a heart attack one of those Saturday nights and I think to this day he got excited over that stupid fake wrestling and that did him in.

Thanks for all of the neat pics here.

 

[dfrisk]

STEVE - Yep, I noticed the wheel wrench zip-tied to the frame. I was used to seeing them like that, that was done towards the end of the Finish line right after my tires/rims were installed, think the same guy tossed the operator's manual in the cab and started the tractor up and drove it off the line and parked the new tractors outside to wait for a tow-tractor to pull them into the west yard.

I didn't have anything to do with a late '77 or '78 model tractor. I was busy driving a little brown truck around the IL side of the Miss. River delivering packages in the Quad-Cities area.

It's impressive how the paint on everything shines. Trucks, tractors, combines!

Dad had a '56 F350 SRW pickup, pretty rare truck, most 350's were DRW with flatbeds. The p/u had rare for the time 17" rubber all the way around, 9 ft long box. had four stake pockets on the step-side box for side boards, not just 3 like an 8 ft box or two like a 6-1/2 ft box on an F100. He had a '54 F250 for a couple years before the 350, it had the typical 8 ft step-side box. Before that he had a '48 F-2 for a couple years. He bought that truck between when he took Mom to the hospital when I was born, and when he brought Mom & Me home. He never had his trucks lettered, "Richard Frisk & Son". Always just "Richard Frisk" in big letters, then "Dick" right below the vent window on the driver's door, and "Denny" on the pass. door. Guess who always rode "Shotgun"!

WHAT was the little Massey-Harris? A 30 or 33? Neighor west and across the road from us had a Massey 44-4, big gutsy Continental 4-cyl engine. Was their most trouble-free tractor over the years. Same neighbor whose G-1000 Bill Newlan bought. They also had a 4020-G NFE they bought new, an old MD they bought at another neighbor's auction, a little M-M R, and an IH 300 utility TLB.

 

[sblunier]

Denny,

Massey is a 22, still have it in the shed. Grandfather's brother married the daughter of the Massey dealer in town (Ben P. Martin). Dad's uncle always ran Massey stuff, 44's, 1155, and finally a 2775 with custom dual exhausts on the Perkins V8.

22 was the chore tractor, PTO, sprayer, stalk shredder, etc.

Grandfather was sick one fall and the neighbors all came to plow for him.....all makes, including a custom 4010/Oliver pulling an Oliver plow.....I'll dig those out and post this afternoon......some of "Ben P's" Massey's are in there too, along with some Deeres and 560's.

BTW, I spent what seemed like 1/2 of my childhood in the little "cubby hole" behind the seat of that 510 combine.....hours on hours listening to that diesel bark.....

 

[sblunier]

Denny,

Massey 22

 

[sblunier]

Neighbors helping my Grandfather plow when he was sick......(some shots are the Plow Day field at Dad's place)....

Nice variety of tractors and plows!

 

[sblunier]

Note the 560 Demonstrator in the last pic (first tractor on right).......

 

[sblunier]

504 and planter (new)

684 (new)

Farm Progress Show (early 80's)

 

[prtombaugh]

Thanks, posters! I’m enjoying the pictures of the old IH equipment. Not everything IH made was good. The model #24 corn picker in this picture was (as Tom Hoffman would say) a POS! No husking beds, so whatever husks the snapping rolls took off, that was it. Dad would pick corn from about mid morning to maybe 1:00 o’clock while the husks still had some “toughness”. Once the husks got dry, the picker did a pretty lousy job. Dad would take the picker to a neighbor, who had a stick welder, and have him weld some aggression on the snapping rolls to improve husking. Eventually the #24 was replaced with a 2-MH.
This picture is from 1955 and notice the corn has been check-row planted. The wagon is from Montgomery Ward. The corn was yielding 120 bu/acre. Not bad for dropping 4 kernels of seed every 40 inches on 40-inch rows.
Steve B. That is Crow’s corn. My dad was a Crow’s dealer for 55 years.

 

[sblunier]

Paul,

Correct....My grandfather also sold Crow's....the pic of him in the Crow's cap by the 656 was when he was planting a "wagon wheel" circular plot on the highway north of Dad's place. A real eye opener for passing cars, and the coolest thing in the world to a 7 year old "Mr. Plow"....

 

[dfrisk]

STEVE - Massey 22... cute little thing... comparable to a H, but a little biggersmaller in size.

You weren't kidding about the wide variety of brands & models at your Grandfather's plow day. I even see a Ford Commander 6000 in the lineup.

The 4010/Oliver tandem tractor makes me laugh. All that iron to pull a 6-bottom plow. If that was an Oliver Super 88, it would almost out-pull that 4010, well, at least Dad's 4010 before he had Terry Warner rebuild the inj. pump.

A lot of people showed up to help your Grandfather out that day. He was highly thought of in the area.

That pic of your Grandfather in front of that 5488 was probably the fall of '81, the 88-series had JUST started production.

I like that pic with the '59 Ford, 1486, 656, & new 684. Everything looks brand new!

PAUL T. - There was a big discussion the last ten days, maybe two weeks on the RPM forum about the #24 pickers. Yep, no husking bed like on a 2M, 2M-E, 2M-H, 2M-HD, just the top end of the snapping rolls to try to remove a couple more husks. The stock IH husking rolls were way too smooth to work well, Dad always used TSC rolls, they had some teeth, the roll was made from stamped rings of used car/truck tires with the reinforcing cords in them, they still didn't do that good of a job. Every two years when Dad was picking Grandpa's acerage we'd replace them, when Grandpa retired we could go 3-4 years. Took most of a week to tear the back end of the picker down and replace them.

 

[wshytle]

Steve B.-

Thanks for all of the family and farm pics. The thing I'm impressed with most is the fact your family loved taking pics. It was sort of a luxury in my immediate family but we did get a few.

Keep 'em coming!

Oh, (nice article on proper loading/hauling in the recent CC issue).

 

[sblunier]

Wayne,

Thanks, My grandfather loved to take slides and one of my cousins recently scanned all of the old family photos/slides so they were available in digital format. There are a few more I'll post some time, maybe a couple of the Crow's plot....

Glad you liked the article!

 

[sblunier]

Denny,

22 was a 2 plow 28hp PTO/belt, 18-20hp drawbar tractor, much more like a Farmall C than an H, but still a nice, nimble little machine.

 

[sblunier]

4010/Oliver was pulling 7 bottoms....

 

[bjamison]

Everyone - very cool pics! When I see this stuff - sometimes I think it was a better time.

Here in the mountains of western VA, not to much in the way of large fields. The dominate tractor in the 60's, 70's and through the mid to late 80's IMHO were Ford 3000 and Massey Ferguson 135 type tractors. Small fields, hay and cattle mostly. My mother is from western North Carolina and it was the same deal there - except tobacco. I wish I had some pics - but no one really clicked a bunch of pictures like they do today.

When I see these pictures, I see a ton of large flat fields, as far as the eye can see. I assume those farms are/were profitable to some extent based on the shear magnitude of the equipment size used.

As I mentioned the dominate tractor in my neck of the woods was MF and Ford and we saw only a very few IH tractors. When I met my Wife, I learned her grandparents had ran a mom/pop dairy farm their whole working life. They too were around here, so small farmers with small fields and lots of hills. I met her grandfather and we have some great talks about farming in general (which he really liked talking about) and he ran IH equipment. He had a Farmall H and later traded it on a Super H. His son told me he would run that H all over those hills without any outward fear of it tipping over. I asked my Wife's grandfather why IH and he said - he just liked them. He ran IH tractors and trucks.

My grandparents had a small farm and produced hay and cattle. They use to suscribe to the Progressive Farmer and that was a cool magazine for us kids as we loved looking at the tractor and truck adds in there. I was at a yard sale last summer and picked-up a couple years copies of those same Progressive Farmer magazines from around 1974ish. Brings back a lot of memories.

Great thread!!!!!!!!

 

[aaytay]

Wow, these pictures are amazing. A brand new 504?? Really?!?!?! Amazing!