Well, it's kinda up in the air on that one. The long story includes my Grandpa owned a local general store here in SWMI. He was known for leniency during wartime rations with accepting/trading/facilitating use of ration coupons. He even got "blinged' for it by the Feds, apparently. He looked out for fellow farmers who needed tires or fuel, and city folk who needed eggs or milk.
Through his connections buying groceries and general store items (coal, feed, tires, fuel, appliances, etc) he bought a lot of goods in Chicago and trucked them here. He found out about a JD tractor that was available and bought it- our barn had been hit by lightning and burned down in 1950, an IH tractor was lost. This MI is serial number 10103, a 1950 model.
The story was that the State of Illinois ordered a large number (100?) of tractors from both local companies (JD and IH) for the State Road Department. Supposedly, whichever company could deliver the tractors first got the bid, the other was out of luck. IH won, and Deere had a surplus of industrial tractors. The first tractor was an M, painted yellow, and of the more traditional configuration- rear drive units turned 90 degrees to raise the rear and the front end extended forward and up to match. It may or may not be an actual MI model, I think it is.
The JD was sitting on his flatbed truck at the store that day, and a local farmer inquired about it. Ever the salesman, Grandpa sold it to him (at a modest profit, no doubt) figuring he could get another. He did, and that one sold as well. When he sold the fifth unit, the local JD dealers got wind of these new, yellow Deeres flooding the local farms, and Grandpa's time as a tractor dealer ended abruptly. I could at one time, lay hands on three of these units within two miles of our place, not sure of the other two, I think one ended up in Galien, the other up north by Holland, MI.
One of the buyers could not pay the total, and needed help getting a loan. Grandpa may have loaned a lot of money out of the store over the years, or at least coordinated loans between individuals with cash and those needing it. It always sounded like he actually cosigned a bank loan for this fellow, who could not make the payments at some point, and Grandpa took the tractor and paid it off.
This MI has been green my whole life (1965). The paint under the green is yellow, and not the yellow chromic primer color, but more industrial yellow. All the other MIs from Spear Store sales were yellow as far as I know, and Grandpa wasn't the kind to pay to have something painted. It may have been green from Deere, or perhaps the first owner had it done. I think it had all the normal stickers showing, to indicate it was a good job, one way or another.
[b:d9f71612b9]tldr; maybe, likely yes, kind of?[/b:d9f71612b9]