Free giveaway post below reminded me.

IaGary · Dec 1, 2010

5 or 6 of us farmers were eating lunch the other day at the local cafe. One guy has a Kinze hat and doesn"t have anything Kinze. He can"t remember where he got the hat.

One day John Kinzenbaw (owner and president of Kinze Manufacturing) walked into the cafe. John knew a couple of guys at the table and asked what kind of a prayer meeting we were having? A few smart remarks were made and then I piped up and asked, why is it Joe has a Kinze hat and doesn"t own any Kinze and I have a Kinze planter, 2 grain carts and Kinze cultivator and I never received a hat.

John looked at the hat thought a minute and said to Joe, you have a toy Kinze grain cart don"t you Joe? Joe has a big farm toy collection and has repaired a few toys for John K.

Joe responded yes he did have a toy Kinze grain cart. John responded,well you know that little toy grain cart will haul just as much grain as my full sized grain carts.

We all just kinda looked at John K funny and he responded, you just have to make more trips.

We were all rolling on the floor laughing.

Gary

showcrop · Dec 1, 2010

Sounds like John K is a regular guy.

IaGary · Dec 1, 2010

Yep you'll see him around town wearing blue jeans and a tee shirt.

Started out in his little weld shop in the late 60's and early 70 he built a plow that you could change the width of the bottoms on the go. Sold the idea to DMI and grew from there. He also refitted the first JD tractor with the Detroit engine in that little shop in Ladora

Got into folding planter frames in the early 80's and bought the row units from JD. It got to the point he was selling as many row units as JD and they cut him off. So it built is own units copying JD.

JD sued. John won against JD useing the defense that JD was faking a shortage of row units.

He came up with the idea of the first large grain carts to keep his guys in the factory busy when they got done building planters.

Everyone else started building grain carts and he never sued them.

You talk to him on the street and he'll talk to you.

He's made a few locals mad by buying farms in the area. But as he says "that's part of business"

Gary

Anonymous-0 · Dec 1, 2010

I also heard once that when jd sued him he found patents previously granted to others for similar components of the me row unit, like a finger pickup unit made by a u of I student out of clothes hangers, v closing wheels, ect.used by others long before jd had these innovations disputing the fact that it was an exclusive jd design

Stan - Florida · Dec 1, 2010

Gary,

I don't know if I saw that first re-powered tractor or not, but we used to go to the tractor pulls at Wyoming, Iowa back in the early '70s.

The New Mellery Abbey, up by Dubuque, had a John Deere 5010 or 5020 that Jon Kinzebau had re-powered with a V-8 Diesel. It was used as the pullback tractor for the sled. That was the first time I heard of Kinze.

Great sounding tractor, for sure.

Stan

Dick L · Dec 1, 2010

Talked to a purchase agent there a few years back and he was telling me how John had the things he manufactured all laid out in his mind. Could just start cutting steel and laying it out on the floor without a print. That purchase agent was once an Oliver block man that had called on my uncle when he was the Oliver dealer in Angola Indiana. He never bought anything from me but sure liked to tell the good things about his boss and not quick to get me off the phone.

Moline_guy · Dec 1, 2010

John Deere should really thank the man, he fixed a lot of there mistakes over the years. This is my brothers 8850 with a 400 cummins with Kinze conversion.

Free giveaway post below reminded me.

IaGary

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showcrop

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IaGary

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Anonymous-0

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Stan - Florida

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Dick L

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Moline_guy

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