Ivan Grove: When I bought this property in 2003, this combine was in the barn, and I really didn't have a lot of interest in the combine, but yet I thought it was unique because of the features on the combine were so closely some of the features of the 2000, year of time. I still am surprised at how some of the features was transferred from a 1955 combine, over to 2021. I decided in '97 that I was going to run this combine because the man that previously owned it, said that it worked fine. We did, and then we reran it again in '17 and now we're running it again in '21.
It's just amazing how an old combine, as old as this machine is, that this combine functions like it does. It does an excellent job. This here, here is how you turn this here, and it raises up the head and lowers the head. Of course, today we got buttons and hydraulics and everything works so nice and sweet but this thing here, you just turn this lever and the head raises, or you can lower. It has a pitman arm with a wooden arm on it for the sickle. Today we have gear boxes and running in oil but yet the geometry of that is, it's unique.
This combine does not have a bagger. This combine has a bin, and if I think I remember right, when I was looking at the operator's manual, which I have original operator's manual to the combine, I think it said it held 30 bushel. It's really unique that back in that era of time, everything was bagged, and they dropped the bag off in the field, and you took the wagon and the tractor, and you picked a hundred-pound bags of wheat up. This here's got a bin. Down here's a unique feature, this lever here, you kick the combine, the thrashing unit out of gear, and then you can run your unloading auger system without the combine running. I think that's just a pretty unique feature.
This is what they call a walker combine. Inside the machine it has straw walkers like we would see in our era of time. It's amazing, the configuration of the walkers are almost identical to what we see in 2021 walker combines. I know we're not in a walker realm anymore, we got rotors, but it's amazing. If you open up the door here, on the side of the combine and you look inside there, it's amazing how some of the geometry in that combine is identical to what we see today in our new combines, if you are purchasing a walker combine.
One day a gentleman was driving up the road, and he seen this combine sitting in my barn, and he come into my shop, and he said to me, he said, "Could I go out and look at your old combine in the barn?" I said, "Yes, I'll go along with you." We went out. I'm not used to Ford, but he looked at the serial number tag, which is right in front of me, and he said, "That is a straight Ford combine. That's not a Dearborn Ford." Now, I'm not sure he has all his information correct, but-- in a little bit of my pursuits, I found out that this is a straight Ford combine. It's a series 607, and he tells me that it's a rare combine.
Down the road, I really don't have a lot of interest in the combine other than I've ran it several times. If I would find a buyer that wanted to buy it, I think I'd negotiate something and I would sell it to them. Outside of that, as you see why it has a real, like our new combines got, I know we have what we call Hume reels, which have fingers on them, but this is what they call a bat reel. Of course, back in 1955, they didn't even know what a Hume reel was. They were bat reels. It appears to me as if it's got the original wood, the spiders, and everything on the combine that was originally from when it was made. At least it appears that way.
This unloading system is very unique, kind of impressive when you stop thinking about it. You pull the button, the auger lays out. You pull your wagon up alongside of it. Another thing, I think the combine does a super, super clean job when it comes to wheat quality. I'm going to crawl up here, and I'm going to scoop a handful here of wheat. It is absolutely clean. It hardly has no foreign material in it. Now I understand it's a hot day, and the wheat's dry, but it doesn't matter. I just think that I got a big combine, and it cleans as good as my big combine.
