I thought to depict a rural farm scene in Southern VA during the 1980s. Any good places to get tractors or combines for that period? I found tractors used in the 1950s for about $20 bucks on hobbylinc.com. Is that too high a price and would they get used in the 1980s? It doesn’t matter to me if hte tractorsare painted.
Thanks,
Lee
Try someplace like Tractor Supply Co. or a farm supply store in the toy department. As far as older tractors still being used, they are used in most cases until they cannot supply enough horsepower to be helpful and then the owner sells them or restores them to have as a recreational tractor, maybe do some light work with them.
You might try your John Deere dealer. A few years ago they had many 1/87 diecast ranging in many sizes/ages. Those same units were sold at Walmart, Kmart for a while so they may be on Ebay of course. Lots of various mfgs have made them over the years.
Yes, a 1950s tractor was still used in the 1980s and is today in many cases. But not so much for a commercial farm where productivity is important.
Richard
Will a tractor from the 50s still be used in the 80s? Well, I believe a lot depends on where the farm is located and what type it is. In the region of upstate SC I grew up in, Ford 8ns and Farmall Cubs were still in common use. The small fields in that area couldn’t justify a mega tractor, so the older, smaller ones kept soldering on. In fact Deere shot themselves in the foot for a while by concentrating on big equipment. Kubota really took off because they made an intermediate size tractor that none of the big companies were making at the time.
I’ve got a '50’s tractor on the farm that I still use, one disc harrow is older. Equipment is often used for years, especially on smaller farms. Some of it has just been on the farm for years, other things bought used when bigger farms went to bigger equipment. Of the fifteen or so pieces of haying and land preparation equipment I have on the farm, I only bought two of them new. A mix of old and relatively recent wouldn’t unusual at all.
Good luck,
Richard
You might keep an eye on release notices of the Walthers Scenemaster vehicles; these are re-releases of the Boley line of vehicles which are all modern. I do not remember what Boley had for farm equipment.
Also, look at the Herpa and Kibri vehicles. They have farm equipment, mostly european, but some of that might work for you. This is a 1982 Fortschritt E 514 Farm Combine from Busch. Could it be repainted???
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/189-40168
On our small ranch we have an International 52 hp tractor that we bought new in 1974. It is still in daily use and is a real work horse. We also have a 2005 80hp that we bought new and I would rather have a 1974 of the same hp. It would be a better built tractor and work harder. Basiclly a tractor will be used untill it no longer will do the job.
I feel the OP’s challenge, it is a missing link, like IH equipment in HO.
There are some items like the Ath JD 4020 series tractors, & the Disk implement, & GHQ long Plow, that may fit a larger tractor, & the time-line.
Perhaps it’s time to reach out to major players in the industry, to ‘request’ more HO/1/87 equipment, as I firmly believe there ‘is’ a morket for them!!!
I for one, would like about 4 flat cars with IH/Stieger Quad Trac units loaded aboard!
Along with so many other voids in 1/87 scale.
However, in the 80’s, Grandpa only let us kids drive the Farmall C’s & the H, while they (adults) had command of the Super M, & 656… We had green, but we (us kids) didn’t know how to start & run the JD B with the bucket, back then.
All of those could/would be condusive to a condensed farm on an HO layout, or vigenette, as I want to continue to do.
So my advise is;
Look often & be paitent, & screen out those that may be mislabeled as the scale you are looking for , as many times an S gauge, 1/64 scale, shows up as HO & other scales…
If I have time to do so, I will try to poat a pic here, of a couple of the ones I have.
Here are the mentioned pix…
Close up shot, of a couple that got “Ryanized”
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