It's an Oliver picker...should I pass?

Jason S.

Well-known Member
I finally got close enough to see it and it is an Oliver single row pull type. The elevator has been taken off and strapped to the side of it for storage, but i could see the white oliver decal on the elevator.I'm trying to get a hold of the owner to see what he wants for it but is it worth pursuing? From what I could see through the weeds it looks like a #5 but it could be older I suppose. Any opinions?
 
Big question would be rust or broken parts. The No. 5 was a good picker. Other than the short husking rolls that the ears would pass over very quickly and not get all the husks off the only problem was the trash auger drive and for some reason the lower drive gear was not made in line with the upper and will wear that chain fast. I had 2 of them. The No. 4 that was a 2 row mounted and the No. 3 and 73 that were 2 row pull type had the longer husking rolls so did a better job, also the No. 6 single roll right hand semi mount had the longer rolls.
 
They made a ton of those number 5s for over a lot of years. I wouldn't be the least little bit afraid of it. Around here they were far preferred over the older New Ideas because they had so many fewer moving parts.
 
Never heard of a snapper version and all snappers that could be converted to huskers were as soon as parts became avaible. I was told that snapped corn only would not keep in the cribbs. This is Ohio and before we got the first picker that was a snapper only in 1946 all corn was shucked and husked by hand. 2 years after Dad got that first picker he was able to get a husking bed for it. Then about 53 traided it on the first Oliver No. 5. He looked at New Idea that was made 40 mile from us but the amount of grease fittings is what made him decide on the Oliver.
 
Oh I remember greasing the New Ideas...that"s what we had growing up and I remember it taking a good half a day to grease it. I honestly don"t think that Dearborn pull type combine we had, had as many grease fittings as the corn pickers. Down here in East TN everybody around always had snappers and put it in the crib with the husk on,but I never did know the reasoning behind it. I stopped and looked and a New Idea 323 today on the way home. It was in fair shape and they wanted $3000.00 plus tax.
 
Remember that the New Idea you looked at is nothing like they were when that Oliver was built in the 60 year ago time frame. That New Idea 323 was not yet built when the Oliver name dissapered.
 
Just happened to think about something for you to take into consideration in finding a picker. I have no idea how much corn you are wanting to pick but this New Idea will pick a lot heavier yeild than the Oliver and it will work with like the 350 or so in size to the Kill bros bed but the Oliver does not have elevator clearance for that type of bed, we had the first model Kill Bros beds that were rated at 125 bu. and at times the picker elevator would be riding on top of the front end of the wagon bed instead of the picker supports carrying the elevator. So that could be a consideration on what you can use, also the extra capacity if you have high yielding corn and of course the New Idea being years newer and if you want to pick any 5, 10 or 15 years down the road and how many acres you want to pick. The elevator on the Oliver runs slow enough it will not fill the back end of a wagon like the hopper beds so to overcome that Dad changed the pully on the elevator to get a faster speed and we always had extra picker boards on the sides and back end of the beds, once we got the speed up then it would without the higher back end just skip an ear every little while over the back end like someone skipping a stone on water. And with those beds we would get about 65 bu per load.
 

We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today.

Back
Top