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Illinoisan’s career choice helped him amass tractors

Some shows are just a tradition; for many in central Illinois and the Midwest, the Prairieland show held in Jacksonville is one of the last of the antique tractor shows’ summer season. The grounds offers myriad activities, with a barn filled with museum quality pieces, a flea market and the beloved ham-and-bean dinner.

Each year the club features a tractor brand; this year it was International Harvester. During Prairieland Heritage Days, though, Dave Fleming of Carthage, Ill., went his own way. He celebrated the show in green rather than red – Oliver green, that is.

 “I grew up on Oliver tractors. I still have Dad’s tractor, he bought it new,” Dave said.

Dave’s father, James, purchased both an Oliver 66 and an 88 when they first rolled off the showroom floor. As with many collectors, it is that with which they grew up that has that sentimental pull and dictates what a collector deems most important in his or her collection. So it is with Dave.

People often wonder how collectors find and haul so many of their tractors. Dave found many of his through his extensive travels. He was a truck driver and covered long distances all over the country. One of the benefits of this job was being where the tractors were.
When Dave heard about a tractor in “Timbuktu,” it wasn’t an issue because at some point in the month, he was probably going that direction. In fact, he specialized in hauling tractors at the end of his career.

“The last few years I was working, I was a tractor trucker,” Dave shared.

Dave had two of these wonderful finds at Jacksonville’s Prairieland show. One of the rarest tractors he owns is his 1957 OC4 Vineyard, that he found out in Lodi, Calif. “I’ve been told there were about 300 made,” he said.

Although Oliver is his favorite brand, Dave admitted to a weakness for crawler tractors. Besides his Olivers, he has Caterpillar and IH crawlers. His OC4 is unique because it is a vineyard tractor. This little tractor had not traveled very far from its origins when Dave bought it.

“I found it just five miles from where it was originally sold. The tractor was sold from a dealership by a fellow collector Oliver collector; Bill Bechtel sold that tractor when it was new,” he said.
The man Dave bought the tractor from worked as a contractor, but also had a vineyard. It was 20 acres of grapes and Dave explained he had used the little OC4 in his vineyard.

The only other OC4 vineyard crawler that Dave has ever heard of recently sold. “Bill Bechtel had also sold that tractor as well,” he pointed out.

The other tractor Dave had at the Prairieland show, which also came from his tractor hauling days, was his Oliver 66, an orchard tractor.
“I got my Oliver 66 from Bill Jackson in Sarnia, Ontario; he was a big Oliver collector. I think he sold this now and then his son bought it back,” Dave added. “Jared Schwartz did the restoration work on the body, plus painted the orchard.”

While Dave will occasionally make a tractor run, now he is pretty much retired and trying to complete restoring the three barns full of tractors he bought along the way.

Here is an example of a collector who used his career to further his hobby – with smart thinking and planning ahead!

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

10/29/2008