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Oliver reproduction parts is a global family business
 
Wrenching Tales by Cindy Ladage 
 
The Korves family collection and business is near the relocated town of Valmeyer, Ill., and offers an amazing outdoors vista. The family are farmers who once fed the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales and now are busy year-round with their business, Korves Oliver.
“We raised hay for the Clydesdales for 38 years and quit just 10 years ago. After starting the parts business, we were doing both and had to make a choice – either the hay or parts,” said Mark Korves.
The family still maintains a relationship with the Busch family and although they chose reproduction Oliver tractor parts over hay, in a room of their parts business – housed in a barn built in 1892 – they have a collection of Oliver items and an array of Anheuser-Busch memorabilia. The business includes Victor and his brother, Robert, and son, Mark. All three families live within a few miles of one another. The farm where Mark and his wife, Sharon, and children – Tyler, 12, and Jenna, 5 – now live was worked by the Korves for 40 years before they purchased it.
Victor’s wife, Nancy, does the books for this family business that began when they couldn’t find parts for their Oliver tractors. “My Great-Uncle Ernest Huch was a mechanic that worked at our local dealer (Mon-Clair Grain & Supply in Columbia) and he retired in 1976,” Mark said. “My great-grandfather was a farmer, and we are still farmers as well. This used to be a sideline business. We started 20 years ago; my great-uncle got us started when we couldn’t find parts. We made them, and that is how we got started and went from there.”
Ernest helped them make a wire harness that was no longer available, and the items they couldn’t buy they borrowed, then copied the patterns and began making their own back in 1991. Mark said they also receive help from a retired dairy farmer that works a couple days a week during the winter months.
The Oliver tractors that are the Korves family’s passion now reside in part in a building that once housed the square bales for the beautiful Clydesdales. Collecting anything Oliver is in their blood. One of the most unusual parts of the collection are trains from Grant’s Farm. “This was powered by a 1600 Oliver engine,” Mark said. “It pulled three cars. We have two complete trains and locomotives.”
At times they get a train out for their two open houses they host twice a year. “We have two open houses, one the Saturday before Christmas, and the second, Good Friday. If is warm here around we pull the train out and have an Easter egg hunt.”
The bulk of this collection is made up of tractors, like the Oliver 950. “This is one of only 50 ever built. We bought this from a customer,” Mark said.
The Korves family has set guidelines for their tractor collecting. “We have two requirements for our tractor collection: the tractor must have rubber tires, no steel, and have an electric start.”
The collection includes an Oliver standard 88 orchard that came out of Florida; there is a styled 88 with a rounded grill built late in 1947 or ’48 and another Oliver standard 88 – one of the first they ever bought. The family also has a 77 Oliver standard, a 77 with an upright LP, a Super 77 orchard and a Super 99 diesel that is the first they restored.
There is a 660 wide-front diesel, one of only 50 wide-front 660s ever built. They also have an O6 Oliver crawler and a 995 with a Detroit engine.
“The Super 88 LP is our signature tractor, and then we had a chance to also get the Super 77,” said Mark.
A rather sentimental tractor is the old-style 88, which was the only one sold at the local Oliver dealership. “Our cousin bought it new and farmed with it up to six or seven years ago,” he said.
There is one unexpected green among the crowd: “The 1947 or ’48 John Deere H is a thorn among roses. This was the first one we restored, and if we screwed up we figured no one would know!”
Another non-green tractor that is nonetheless related to the Oliver brand is the Cockshutt. “We have a Cockshutt 770 made when Cockshutt was buying from Oliver, then painting them red. This one was sold in Canada and is all original,” Mark explained.
It was around 1993 that the family learned the restoration hobby, when the great flood happened and the town of Valmeyer was underwater. A local JD collector who was a body man stored his 2-cylinders at their farm and lived in the then-empty farmhouse. As rent he taught them body work, along with another mechanic who helped round out their restoration education.
The original farmhouse is now gone and in its place is a beautiful pavilion. “There was a large cabin inside,” Mark said. “We wanted to tear the house down but save the log cabin, so we salvaged the wood. We figure this was built in the late 1700s and the fireplace in the 1800s, so we saved the large fireplace and built the pavilion over it.”
They also preserved the cellar of the house. The Korves families are savers, in every sense. For more details, log onto their website at www.korvesoliver.com

Readers with questions or comments for Cindy Ladage may write to her in care of this publication.
4/30/2015