what makes the John Deere Collectors so Flakey?

Just recently, for example, I had an old boy who was very proud of his umpteen jillion JDs, and wanted some Gs I have been needing to get rid of. After many pix back and forth, he made an offer I accepted, and made arrangements to get them loaded for him. I even took some off to offset his trip costs. In the mean time, several other guys were interested, but the tractors were spoken for.

Well, when I didn"t hear from him, and when I called he"d decided to buy one elsewhere.

Other trades involving JDs ended the same. On the other hand, when I have dealt with guys on IH or AC stuff, they did all they promised, one guy even sending me money (unasked) to hold a tractor for him.

Any time I even suggested that to the JD crowd, you would have thought I had asked them to wallow naked in an ant pile.

Maybe its just there are so many JD guys that there is more room for the fringes, but It has really, really put me off.

Between that and the goobers at the tractor shows that like to critique the minute differences between a June 13, of 1938 and a July 12, 1938 John Deere B have really put me off the green.

That, and a 70lp that tried to kill me last september.

Why not set up a booth at the next tractor show and poll the crowd?

You can have a friend post the results for you here on the board next moon.

Mitch

Saw it with old cars,guns,motorcycles etc.You start getting big money involved the crooks and frauds come out trying to make a killing screwing people.

Since they have more people collecting, biggest chance of running into the bee's behinds and people who are into for it other reasons.

One of my friends restores JDs.

He got into it after being bored with restoring Porsches with his dad.

And goodness knows, you don't want to even risk scratching one of the Porsches -- the cars where to look pretty in the garage, but traveled everywhere by covered trailer.

And pretty much the JD are the same way -- gleamingly pristine, but if a kid with ice-cream sticky fingers comes within 10 feet of it at a fair he's on the verge of having a stroke.

I know he finds the mechanical & paint work relaxing. I'm sure he has pride in showing it off, which is OK.

But I guess like cars and guns...keep 'em clean to show you take care of your stuff, but darn it go out and use it and let people touch and feel (safely) around it.

I'm sure there are collectors of every color who act similiarly; but I think the JDs are the ones that attract the most people who aren't doing it to only relive childhood, or like me 'cause they need a tractor and find it relaxing tinkering on it after the office...but are looking for "projects" to restore -- whether a car, aircraft, or tractor.

Hope I made some sense in that babbling :)

They tend to be uppity, clickish, argumentative and can't seem to leave the house without every piece of clothing they have on and everything surrounding them having "JOHN DEERE" plastered on it.

They are virtually identical to another group of "machinery" collectors that come to mind.... The Harley guys, just with a different machine thats also under powered, out dated, over rated and way over priced.

As far as that shovelhead scooter goes, I basket cased it together, and might've agreed with you on being outdated, except that they're being copied by those cookie cutter types in Aisa, almost to the lopey sound of the cam and V-twin...because they're outdated? A few years ago, a friend's wife introduced me to a gal 1/2 my age that was racing around on the back of her boyfriend's 0 to 9000 MPH in a second rice-rocket. Up until that very day, she thought it was cool. Then I introduced her to the back of that slow, vibrating shovel on the way back to my place where I introduced her to something else that was very slow. She dumped her boyfriend and dated me for a few months. Newer and faster is not always better, ask your girl sometime.

Mark

I regularly soap lp gas lines to make sure nothing leaks, and had done so just a week before.

Long story short the main fuel line turned out to just be regular, non re-enforced gas line that had pressure ends "crimped"on it. I was pulling a BWA disc and the fuel line ruptured as I was turning at the end of the field and ignited from the distributer. I pulled the clutch back and bailed over the side as the tractor deck was engulfed in flame.

I am fortunate to be alive, and thankful that all I had was 3rd degree burns on my forearms and severly blistered face (It takes a long time to get the smell of barbecued YOU out of your nostrils).

I could go on about how hard it is to get a 911 operator to understand that you are injured in a field, and not at the address of the cell tower you are calling from, and I really can't understand all the fuss over Opium, as morphene did little to ease the pain of burning.

But I have healed up nicely, with the Lords help and tender care of my RN wife.

Check those fuel lines, though.

I live in North Texas, and I myself collect JD and use it, as well as other brands. You seem to have a real problem with anyone who might criticize any thing to do with Waterloo.