70D: What are the odds ?!?

I have a 70 Diesel, so I tend to check serial numbers whenever possible. While Rick and I were walking and gabbing, we came upon a 70D Row Crop (just like mine) that belonged to a Mr. Steve Kizer, and I was surprised to see that the plate read 7033923. You see, my 70D is 7033924. Well, I was thrilled ! I never thought I would find the tractor on either side of mine, and here was one of them.

We went on to look at the rest of the tractors, and across the grounds in another group was a 70D RC belonging to JW and David West. Want to know what this serial plate read ? 7033922 !!! I told Poorerbut I had never seen three consecutive numbers unless someone had bought them as a group. I mean, what are the odds of three consecutive tractors nearly 50 years old, still running and not having at least one of them scrapped out ? I have a nice picture of 7033922, but my snapshot of 7033923 is poor, so I'm going to try and correspond with the owner so I can at least keep up with the whereabouts of my tractors siblings.

Now I apologise in advance if my math is wrong, but I wanted to have a little fun with this. I haven't checked the records, but I think I remember that there were around 40,000 model 70's built. All 70's shared the same serial number string, so to find one particular serial number is one in 40,000. To find one of the two on either side would be 2 in the remaining 39,999. To find the one of the particular two that could be on either side of this pair would be 2 in 39,997. So I think the odds of finding three consecutively numbered model 70 tractors could be nearly one in 16 trillion.

As I was ready to leave for the day, there was another 70D coming in on a truck. I asked Poorerbut if I should check that one to see if I could find a fourth consecutive number, and he laughed and said "DON'T PUSH YOUR LUCK !"

Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket !

Frank-in-Tallahassee
70D // 855