corn picker sales

Charlie M

Well-known Member
Anybody know who the leader of the pack was during the days of mounted and tow behind corn pickers. I my travels about all I"ve ever seen are IH and New Idea pickers. I know other companies made them. What all have you guys see around. I have a 1-PR and a NI323 and both are good pickers. I like the 1-PR better overall but I can get through the mud better with the NI picker.
 
Bob - I grew up down that way but don't remember who used to sell NI equipment - was it Tuttle in Kingsferry. Going back to the 60's now and some of my brain cells from time period may be missing.
 
NI pull type was king in this part of Minnesota. The snapping rolls shelled a bit more, but the husker was far better.

JD pull type brought a premium price because of the better header deal, but there were far less of them.

Mounted I saw a lot more IHC, but because IHC was perhaps the more populate tractor around here for that time period.

Paul
 
I recall the majority of mounted corn pickers in my area were the same brand as the tractor underneath them. Mostly IHC and Deere tractors, so most corn pickers were IHC and Deere too. Saw some JD pickers on Farmall and Oliver tractors. Rarely saw another brand picker on a JD tractor, except the occasional New Idea picker on a JD. Deere's Roll-a-Matic front end was criticized for balling up with mud quicker than other brand narrow front ends, usually by IH owners.

New Idea and Minneapolis Moline were popular pull type pickers in my area.

Other areas might have been entirely different.
 
In my area of northeast Missouri it seemed a battle between New Idea and John Deere. If you wanted a pull type picker you got a New Idea and if you wanted a mounted picker you got either one. I've seen a lot of green pickers on other brands of tractors in my area. New Idea pickers are pretty common as well but you hardly ever saw one on a green tractor. I've seen lots of WD45's with 227 pickers on them. Mike
 
From the late forties and through the fifties Minneapolis Moline pull types were real popular in my area. New Idea was the most popular pull type later on in the fifties and into the sixties. It picked cleaner than the others. Deere and IH pretty much had the mounted picker market wrapped up but New Idea was in close third place. A friend of mine said he learned his first cuss words as a little kid watching his grandpa work on his Allis mounted picker on a WD. JIm
 
MM was the top of the line pull type until the 60's when they came out with the bronze snooted Husker 250 then NI took over. Only die hard guys had jd pickers and IH pickers were always corn grinders. There was also a few Olivers around.
 
Far more NI here, either pull type or mounted, than any other brand. JD next most common, and really not a lot of any others. While not common around here, I have seen pull type IH and Oliver and two Ford mounted pickers. I don't remember ever seeing an IH mounted, or A-C or MM of any type.
 
New Idea was the most popular pull-type here. When the JD 300 picker came out it gave the New Ideas serious competition. There were a few Olivers around but not much else. (The A-C dealer also had a contract with New Idea so guess which line he stocked.) Mounted pickers tended to be matched to the tractor they were on (except for A-C of course) until very late when the New Idea 319 was showing up on everything.
 



IHC for mounted with a few Deere. Pull types were mostly N.I. or Oliver. I never seen a Case of any kind.
 
In north-central Illinois, mid to late 1950"s, my older brother and I hauled a lot of loads of ear corn to the corn crib from behind my Dad"s Minneapolis Moline Uni-Picker. Only one of a few with a self-propelled or mounted picker in our area, so he opened a lot of farmers fields so they could get in with their pull-type, mainly New Ideas. Prior to that Dad had a mounted Oliver Picker on an old 70 with steel wheels converted to rubber.
 
Our neighbor had a Case mounted picker on a 630 case tractor that picked the shuckiest corn I have ever seen. When we helped shell his corn we had to pick it out of the crib with picks. He had a shuck wagon so he could save the shucks for bedding so it's possible he covered the husking rolls. That 630 broke an axle under that picker when he was in mud so there must have been a weakness there. Later in his farming career he got a NI pull type. First time I went to his place to help shell after he got the NI I was expecting a day's worth of hard picking and wailing away at the corn, but instead the corn was so clean we mostly stood and watched it run. Dad had a 227 Deere and it picked fairly dirty. The husking bed just wasn't big enough. Jim
 
Kinda common for a 630 Case to break an axle with a 425 or 426 picker on. To much picker for the tractor. I've got a twin elevator Case IM picker on a DC and standing back you can see the axles bow with the weight.
 
New Idea was king around here in the 60s and thereafter with the later designs. A few older pickers mixed in, but it is hard to find anything other than NI still going today in use.
Lots of pull-types sold to fellows who worked at NI and farmed because of employee discounts and hundreds of people who worked there helping build them.
The top decal "Cornpicker Capital of The World" was a bumper sticker produced for NI employees to put on their vehicles to show people "where they were from."
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I grew up in the 80s where there was still a fair amount of mounted pickers being used yet. Most common ones in this area were the IH, Deere and New Ideas for mounted and Deere, Oliver and New Idea for pull types. I used to see a few Fords mounted and the occasional A-C and Case. I think Case had a good picker, just not many dealers nearby. We used a 33 A-C until 78 when we got a mounted New Idea. Still see a few IH mounted pickers around but mostly if someone is still picking its with a New Idea pull type.

I bleed orange but A-C never had a hi capacity corn picker. They did well for not having any shelled corn on the ground but they also ended up with half the stalk in the crib and you had to pick at a slow pace.

Will try to attach a video of my 190 picker running.
Picker
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Here in central IL...New Idea was king, especially pull types.
Mounted - IH, JD

I think it really boiled down to dealers. Here at Arthur, we had a very large New Idea dealer and two large IH and JD dealers.
 

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