By SHELLY STRAUTZ-SPRINGBORN
Michigan Correspondent IONIA, Mich. — Doug Mitchell grew up farming with Oliver tractors. Now he has them just for fun.
“We farmed with them growing up. I was using 60s and 70s when they were just a tractor you used,” said the 55-year-old collector from Fulton, in southern Michigan’s Kalamazoo County.
With 20 Oliver tractors in his collection, Mitchell has two that are extra special to him – a 440 and a Super 44.
“My dad told me about those little tractors, but I’d never seen one growing up,” he said. “The first time I got to a tractor show, I said I was going to have them both. It took me a while, but I got them.”
Mitchell’s 440 was on display recently at the 6th annual Ionia Farm Power Show at the Ionia Fairgrounds, part of the Great Lakes Oliver Collectors Association’s state show. Fully restored, Mitchell’s treasure was one of only 225 of the tractors built during a one-year run in 1960.
Mitchell said he came across the 440 sort of by chance. “I knew the guy that had it for about three years. I just had to work on him,” he said.
He knew the little tractor, which was primarily used by tobacco farmers to cultivate their fields, was a unique find. “There’s only so many 440s out there. You got to figure that some of them have been scrapped out,” he said.
The tractor was in pretty tough shape when Mitchell acquired it, but “it was restorable,” he said. “It was probably average or above for how you find them.”
The project took him about three years to complete because he “stopped and started a lot.” But the desire to display his tractor at a national convention featuring Oliver tractors in Baraboo, Wis., in 2005 prompted Mitchell to complete the restoration project.
“There were eleven 440s there,” he said.
It was the first time he displayed the tractor. He quickly got a taste, however, for just how rare it was and how popular it is with collectors.
“I was offered $10,000 for it at the first show I took it to,” he said. “I had to get out of there before I did something I would regret.”
Mitchell, who works as a FedEx driver, said his collection is just a hobby, and he enjoys tinkering with tractors in his spare time.
“I could have restored it in one winter if I’d had the time to work on it,” he said of the 440. “I would get started and then put it on the back burner.”
He credits his father, Gordon, for helping with much of the project.
“I owe him a world of thanks. He’s my mechanic. He does my motor work,” Mitchell said.
It was some of Gordon’s connections that helped Mitchell find the parts needed to complete the restoration. “We know enough people that we were lucky and were able to get the stuff we needed,” Mitchell said. “I actually have some spare parts and I’ve been able to help out other people.
“Sheet metal was probably the hardest” material to find, he said. “The sheet metal only fits that tractor. And, the grilles are one of a kind with the cutout. It’s the only tractor this grille fits on.
“I’ve seen people with these tractors needing the nose piece and giving up to $1,000 for it.”
As for the rest of his collection, Mitchell said, “I try to go with the stuff that’s kind of rare – hard to come by.”
He has an LP Orchard tractor that he purchased out of Florida. “That’s going to be very, very rare,” he said.
“Oliver only built 88 of them. It’s in the propane orchard style and that makes it about twice as rare.”
As for his Super 44, Mitchell said that restoration project is “about two years out. I’ve got some other things to do ahead of that.”
Collecting the green and white machines is a family affair.
“Between my dad, my uncle and me, we have about 75 Oliver tractors,” Mitchell said.
This farm news was published in the July 18, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. |
