A (true) Story of a scrapped BI
From a visitor and contributor to the site. Thanks!
If you don't know what a Plymouth tractor is, go to http://www.silverkingtractors.com
The Story...
In about 1975 there was a BI in a scrap metal yard in Port Huron, Michigan. It could have been purchased for about $100. However, at the time I was too uninformed to realize the treasure before my eyes. I was only looking for a few parts for my run of the mill 1938 BR...
...I had been buying scrap from Mr. Bill Berlin for a number of years and the tractor had been taken from a local brass foundry. Once in the scrap yard the crane with a huge magnet lifted it up onto a huge pile of old cast iron and dropped it on the top. The fenders, hood, and most of the tin was badly bent up. But the castings were all intact. The tires were of an industrial nature, and the front axle was set back under the frame. It was clearly a BI. At that time I did not have the proverbial "pot to pee in" and so let the offer to buy it pass me by. This was a very high volume yard and in about a week it has been shipped out.
The explaination
In the early 1970's I wanted a John Deere BR so badly I could taste it. However, the only one in my geographic area was not actually for sale, and I did not even have enough ready cash to even make an offer. Both my brother and myself were busy like all young married people putting together furniture and other necessities for a home. Thus, we did not have any hope of slipping any money out of a strapped budget. So we decided to scam our way into a little ready cash. We knew of a small off-brand abandoned tractor setting setting out in the middle of a field. We contacted the owner who agreed to sell the little tractor for $125. We gave him $10 to hold the deal while we "considered" it and left after taking a picture. We then took the photograph and mailed it to the Gas Engine Magazine and offered for sale our PLYMOUTH tractor for $300. Several months passed and we never received even one telephone call concerning our little PLYMOUTH.
We had decided our $10 deposit was a loss, and looked for another money making project. Then one day we received a telephone call and were offered $250, which we snapped up as quickly as a mouse trap. We got the buyers check in the mail, cashed it, and went and bought the tractor. Once we got it home and actually looked it over we realized that we had duped ourselves. This was one great little tractor, about all it needed were new rubber tires, and a paint job.
After expenses we each made a profit of about $50, but it was enough to "parlay" our way into the BR. It just so happened that in a completely unexpected way the owner had an auction, which was not well advertised and was conducted on a cold rain soaked day. We started the bidding, and drove out the other bidder at $65! It was an absolute steal and we knew it. But it exhausted about of our available cash reserves. It might help to reference this by indicating that we were each making probably less than $7,000 a year at the time.
So now if you attach the former story into this position you can perhaps better understand why the BI was simply left to pass into history.
In conclusion: In order to obtain a relatively common John Deere BR we literally gave away a very fine PLYMOUTH and enough of a John Deere B Industrial. Both of which were very rare, and today command a significant amount of money. To take a little of the pain out if this story it might help to indicate that in that era it was not easy to determine the year common tractors like our JD BR was made let alone the really unusual tractors. Serial number lists were not readily available. In fact we passed up an early D SPOKER simply because none of the JD so called "experts" we had contact with had the slightest idea what we were talking about. They wrongly guessed it had been some sort of conversion caused by having broken the regular dish type flywheel. I know this sounds ridiculous today, but back then things were much different, and we were "YOUNG" (Young and Dumb")...
As another chapter to the story, here is that John Deere BR he schemed so much to get (as it looks now).
The End...
The first part was a little depressing, but the second part had me laughing, a little. Ouch! he passed up so much! But of course, he didn't know. I hope this website will keep someone else from making the same mistakes.
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