DAVENPORT, Iowa — The John Deere Memorabilia Conference was filled with those who love to collect everything Deere. Vendors were set up in one room with some amazing collectibles on display owned by Jim and Marilyn Kruse of Granville, Iowa.

The couple shared items they have collected over the years. “We have been collecting for abut 20 years,” said Jim Kruse. “We started out with tractors, and then got into memorabilia.”
They had an array of items including a cool framed fan and pictures of founders of famous equipment companies later owned by John Deere, such as of Joseph Dain and William Velie. There was also a neat piece that looked like a turtle and worked like a key, about which Jim wasn’t sure of its use.

“Dain was in Carollton, Missouri, from 1890 to 1900, and then he moved to Ottumwa and made hay equipment. In Carrollton, someone made these little turtles,” he explained.

While the Kruses and several other vendors showed their wares, in another room presenters entertained attendees. On March 17, during the afternoon session, Toy Hall of Fame collector and writer Ray Crilley provided a presentation titled “Vindex – From Sewing Machines to Toys.”

Ray, who hails from East Springfield, Pa., shared that early Vindex toys were produced by the National Sewing Machine Co. located in Belvidere, Ill. It was this company that produced the famous cast iron toys.

The company began producing sewing machines and eventually branched out into toys. Vindex toys came in all shapes and sizes of cars, motorcycles and farm toys which included a whole line of John Deere toys. It also made horse-drawn wagons, bookends, table lamps, dog doorstops and dog and owl banks.

The company was never called Vindex; this was just a division of the National Sewing Machine Co., and it named the toys after a popular sewing machine called the Vindex.

Ray Crilley showed an example of a magazine titled Farm Mechanics, which had an ad for the Vindex toys. “The magazine started in June of 1919,” he said.

The National Sewing Machine Co. used the magazine to promote its toys. It was in December 1930, Ray said, when the first published promotion of farm toys began.

Kids were able to obtain the finely made Vindex toys by selling subscriptions to Farm Mechanics. “The idea behind the Vindex John Deere toys was to promote the John Deere brand,” Ray said.
Vindex also produced a gas engine toy and a team of horses. “Another item they made was a hay wagon,” he added. “It was a short-bed wagon with a detachable hitch for tractors or horses. They also made a manure spreader with working gears and a grain wagon with a separate seat. It also had a hitch.”

The Vindex toys came in a three-bottom plow and a hay loader with a set of walkers operated by wheels. Vindex also produced toy men to sit on the tractors. It took a few subscription sales to work up to a man, he added: “If you got one toy back then for Christmas, you were doing good.”

Deere was just one of the brands Vindex created; it also made Case and McCormick-Deering toys. “The Vindex line competed with Arcade, that was made in Freeport,” Ray said.

One of the rarest items Vindex created was a background that showed a farm scene in front of which the toys could be placed. He said one was going to sell in an upcoming auction. This find totaled about six that he knows of. “I can count on my hand how many were made,” Ray explained.

As to what happened to the Vindex toys, as the Depression progressed it became harder and harder to get by, he said. “They quit making toys in 1938, and most novelty items by 1939.”
During World War II, the company made materials for the war effort. Then after the war, it resumed production of sewing machines, but not Vindex toys. The company closed in 1955.
Besides Vindex and Arcade farm toys, not many were made until after the war, when Joseph Ertl began melting down aluminum, creating the famous Ertl line.

Ray is also a collector. With more than 12,000 toys, his favorite is the first one he has had since he was a child, a John Deere 60. Every week new toys are delivered to his doorstep.

He said once, someone asked him what he would do with all his toys when he died, and he answered, “When I die, I will take them with me, because UPS delivers everywhere!”

Ray Crilley writes for Toy Farmer Magazine and Toy Trucker. With Charles Burkholder, he wrote and published the popular books Collecting Model Farm Toys of the World and International Directory of Model Farm Tractors.

Readers with questions or comments for Cindy Ladage may write to her in care of this publication.