Unstyled B serial number search

Buster

Member
Does anyone have a production register for the unstyled B JD"s? Curious what shows for serial # 31850. Wanting to know what type of wheels it came out on.
 
Buster, the Production Register says for S/N 31850:

Build date: 1937 01 18
Ship date: 1937 01 16
Destination: Corning, IA
Equipment: ab4 (means 48-inch skeleton rear wheels, 1.5-inch guide bands and cast lugs)

(Note - there are lots of examples in the Production Register where the ship date is before the build date....)
 
Not trying to be an axxhole, but the dates don't work. Am I missing something other than a massive amount of self-inflicked(sp?) brain cells ?
 
Well, Bob, that is what is published in the Production Register for the Unstyled "B". And that Production Register lists dozens of model "B" tractors where the "ship date" precedes the "build date".

For example, S/N 31842 has a "build date" of 1937 01 18, but has a "ship date" of 1937 01 16, as does 31850, 31857, 31858, and 31862. So what's the deal with "shipping" a tractor two days before it was "built"??

There have been published explanations in Two-Cylinder that "build dates" are not necessarily the actual date of completed manufacture of a tractor, but the date a tractor was entered into inventory in the warehouse.

There may also have been accounting games played regarding inventory quantities and inventory tax liabilities that required "adjustments" in published dates - or maybe there were a lot of recording or transcribing errors made by the time Two-Cylinder published the Production Register.

At any rate, that's the information that's available and published. And in cases like this, it seems to raise more questions than answers...
 
Thanks for the info Dan. Don't want to be listed as a "Correct Police" guy. I can see John Deere trying to up sales by 'jiggleing' ( you know -jiggleitalittlebitanditwillopen) some numbers. I'm sure the practice is not new --just like political polls ! Thanks again. b
 
Dan is dead on with the info from the Production Registers that were produced by T-C. The build dates are truly "warehouse" dates rather than when the tractor left the dyno or paint booth.
Personally I don't think there was any intentional deception on the part of John Deere to "ahead date" the build date. It is far more likely that the entries were made in the original logs after the tractors had left, and or errors in trascribing the records on the part of T-C. Nothing wrong with that. Human error exists everywhere all the time. I can tell you with absolute certainty that there were errors made by T-C. I own "A" 441965 and contacted JD Archives twenty years ago and they told me the "special equipment" was "rubber up front and regular steel on the back, powerlift PL-31042, and the magneto serial number". Years later I purchased a research from T-C and it came back "no special equipment listed". I contacted T-C and they double checked while I waited on the phone. They came back that their records were correct and I argued the point, of course to no avail.
I was once told by a person in the know that possibly there were two sets of original registers at JD. One at the factory in Waterloo, and maybe a second one at Moline that was more like an accounting register, and that maybe T-C had the Moline records to transcribe from. I would love to know all the little details myself. I also understood the the whole project to transcribe the written records to electronic file was done by a number of volunteers, possibly some of the human error aspect.
Here's your chance Jack Cherry, tell us the whole story, with all of the little details. Clear it all up for us detail guys who want to know. Maybe in the next issue of T-C???
I'm still waiting for the 35 model A serial number that left the factory with powerlift PL-4283................I'll never give up the quest for the truth, and the dissemination of the information to all of us detail junkies.
 
Will is right, there is no register available for model A's.
With a little math I can tell you that 564221 was built about 2/20/46. Just an estimate, but should be pretty close. The rest of the details will have to come from T-C Club or the vistors center in Moline.
 

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