Ken Klettke was in a pinch to complete a farm display and could not find suitable components, so he built his own.
"I was looking for well-built silos for my home farm display. I wasn't able to find the quality 1?16 scale models I wanted, so I started building them. After the project was complete, my brother saw the models. He asked if I would build some 1/64 scale models for his display that he sets up at toy shows. My brother's friends saw his setup and asked if I would make some for them. So I started making more and selling them at farm toy shows. It mushroomed from there and as they say, the rest is history," Ken indicated.
At first, Ken was reluctant to take on more complex projects, but he was nudged on. "Bob Heath and Bud Wall are two friends with extensive scratch building experience. They saw my work and thought I was pretty good at it. They encouraged me to keep building," he shared.
Ken launched his custom endeavor by building 1/64 and 1/16 scale model silos. As requests came in, he began crafting 1/16 scale field equipment. And with time, the equipment became more complex. Ken noted, "Naturally, collectors wanted models of equipment they worked with. Some of those created real challenges. But, I learned to adapt anc build according to their desires."

As he farms the fields of northwestern North Dakota, Dan Maier studies the specifics. The distinct contours of a field. The exact stubble pattern of a corn row. The hue of the rusty abandoned equipment lining a tree row. The meandering tracks of a prairie road. Then he meticulously recreates those details in his farm displays.
Raised on a farm near Morristown, S.D., Dan graduated from high school in Mobridge, S.D., after his family left the farm. But the farm never left Dan.
"I couldn't let it go," he said. "Farming is all I ever wanted to do."
He now lives in Wildrose, N.D., with his wife, Janae, and newborn son, Joseph. And he climbs into the tractor cab every day to farm with his father-in-law, raising small grains and field peas on the plains of North Dakota amidst the oil wells of the Bakken Formation.
Dan was 19 years old when he pulled his childhood farm toys out of storage and decided to pursue the creation of his first display. With an overly ambitious idea, Dan never completely finished both of the 4x8 portions of that display.
"But it was a good learning process," he says.
Those lessons led him to seek the advice and ideas of others, and Dan quickly formed bonds with other modelers, including Adam Frerichs of Virginia, Neb., Chris Delva, from Fremont, Neb., and Chris Putman, a farmer on the prairies of Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Denny May of Chetek, Wis., has crafted a unnique grader around a Farmall M pedal tractor. The original grader was manufactured and marketed as an American Coleman No. 8.
"Bob Anderson, who is a good friend, learned about a retired version of the old grader at Rick Lake, Wis. On a cold, winter day, without mush to do, we loaded up and drove north to find this piece of equipment. Since Bob was told exactly where it was located, we sought it out behind an old barn. Although it was nearly buried in snow, we took numerous measurements and shot pictures as best we could. This was all I had to work from in creating this project," Denny related.

TRACTOR OUTFITTED WITH GRADER
The American Coleman No. 8 was manufactured by the American Road Equipment Company of Omaha, NEb. This utility grader was built around a Farmall M with a 35-horsepower rating. The front wheels were first removed. Then framework was built to support the grader blade and turning mechanism, along with leaning front wheels. The 10-foot-wide blade was controlled by hydraulics. The resulting light-duty, economical machine was satisfactory in performing maintenance work on gravel roads and parking lots. It also served well in cleaning snow during the winter months.

For almost 20 years, Eef Smitshuysen has been building paper tractors from printed sheets. And despite not noticing many newcomers in this hobby, he has discovered that the number of building projects on the market is increasing all the time!
Eef lives in the village of Schimmert in the Metherlands, where he is the housekeeper and manager of a Schimmert rural museum.
Eef has enjoyed tractors and agriculture all of his life. His father was an Air Force pilot, which fuels Eef's interest in aircraft as well. However, the Smitshuyen family used to spend vacations at a campsite in the rural areas in the southeast Netherlands, well-know for its scenic landscape and peaceful atmosphere. It was on the neighboring farm to the campsite that Eef, who considers himself a city boy, first learned to drive tractor when he was a kid.

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1976 was a notable year in the United States, with a bicentennial celebration as well as a hotly contested presidential election, in which a relatively unknown from Georgia named Jimmy Carter upset incumbent Gerald Ford. Ford's cause was not helped by a stagnant economy. The inflation that resulted affected the farm community. Despite high commodity prices, several farm equipment builders were gasping for air. Oliver was no exception.
Toy Farmer pays homage to Oliver's final production of the Oliver 2255 in 1976 with one of its 2019 show tractors. Toy Farmer has chosen two tractors for its 2019 National Farm Toy Show issues. For the 42nd National Farm Toy Show Nov. 1-3 in Dyersville, Iowa, Toy Farmer is issuing a 1/16 scale Oliver 2255 two-wheel-drive with ROPS and a 1/64 scale Minneapolis-Moline A4T-1600 four-wheel-drive.
The Oliver story begins just prior to the Civil War, when James Oliver was awarded a pair of patents– one for a plow and the other for a chilling process, which made his plow better. This was, of course, well before the self-propelled tractor was even an idea. In fact, Oliver did not enter this market until 1929, after a merger with the Hart-Parr and Nichols & Shepard lines. The color scheme most familiar to collectors –the green, yellow and red with art deco styling–would not appear until the late 1930s.

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Mike Narloch crafted this 20-35 Model E Allis-Chalmers. He started by splitting and stripping a 1970s Bob Gray casting and grinding off the air intake stack and radiator cap. He then added some frame detail with his Dremel. He added a seat and steering wheel and shaft, then made a new air stack, radiator cap and crank. Mike also made a more detailed front axle from a piece of aluminum stock, wire and tie rod ends from Dakotah Toys. A set of wheels was salvaged from a Scale Models tractor. "The 20-35 was finished in dark green with red wheels and decals expertly crafted by my wife, Susie," MIke said.

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Like many collectors in the farm toy hobby, Herb Bergen's interest was sparked at a young age. Back in the 1970s, Herb's parents owned a Massey Ferguson dealership in Winnipegosis, Manitoba, Canada, where he spent a great deal of time. In those days, C. Bergen Service also sold Massey Ferguson toys.
"All of the dealership tractors and combines came home and were always put away so others who came over couldn't play with them. I started out with one combine, a couple of tractors and a few pieces of machinery." Herb said.
Herb acquired an array of toys during his childhood, but didn't think of them as collectibles until a visit with a short-line equipment supplier, who inquired if he had a collector's edition of the Massey Ferguson 1105.
"When I got home, I looked in my stash of toys, and, sure enough, I had one of those 1105s," Herb said. "I made sure to set that tractor aside. Not long after, I went to my first toy show and was hooked immediately. Now I have over 500 pieces in my collection. Nearly all of them are Massey-Harris of Massey Ferguson."
C. Bergen Service is still in business today. The Massey Ferguson dealership was let go in 1980 and the business focused on the repair and parts departments. More than a decade ago, the business changed again when the repair shop was discontinued in favor of expanding the parts department. Farm supplies and equipment parts make up the core of the business today. Herb serves as parts manager.
About the time that Herb started collecting toys in his youth, he visited a hobby shop in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
"It was mostly model railroading materials," Herb said. "I found a six-volt motor with individual planetaries at the shop. I knew that I could fit it into a 1/16 scale Massey Ferguson 1105. I cut an 1105 totally apart ad fitted the motor inside. After hooking it to a six-volt battery, it drove around really nice. I was able to locate other smaller motors to fit into other models as well. The next tractor I put together had a motor and a differential and it still works to this day," Herb said. 

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As a longtime farm toy collector, Pat Smith treasures the friendships he's formed as much as the treasure trove of toys that he's collected over the years.
"The best part of the hobby is the people that I've met. I've met some really good people and a lot of them have been friends for many years who I stay in pretty close touch with, whether it's out here in the Northwest, or in the Midwest of the Eastern United States. I've gotten to know people from all over the United States and even some from around the world from going to the toy show in Dyersville, Iowa, every year. It's kind of like a large social event. It really is fun," he described. 
Now living in the Seattle, Wash., area, Pat grew up on a dairy farm where the family raised and milked registered Holstein cattle near Eden in east central Wisconsin. 
"Growing up on a farm, I had farm toys as a kid, as did most of my friends and neighbors at the time. That's what kids played with back then. They're the old Earth toys that we're now collecting as the old historic pieces," he said.
Among his current collection is one of the original toys he owned as a child, an Oliver 1800 tractor that was purchased at a local dealership where his father bought some of the farm's tractors and equipment. The rest of Pat's toys were given away as he grew older.
"I really didn't foresee any future in needing or wanting them," he said. "The hobby at that time, in my mind, I didn't even know it existed. I didn't realize that I'd someday later be collecting them."
When Pat was younger, the family farm was loyal to Allis-Chalmers, which was based in Milwaukee, Wis., at the time, although there were other colors being used as well, including several New Holland implements.
"Initially, my father had a fair amount of Allis-Chalmers equipment and his father liked Case tractors," Pat said. "We always had Oliver plows on the farm. In the Midwest, it seemed no matter what color tractor you drove, it always pulled an Oliver plow, because they were always considered the best plows of the time."
Pat's dad was a member of the bowling team sponsored by the local Oliver dealership, which eventually drew the family to purchase the farm's first Oliver tractor. It also led Pat to have an unusual item in his collection.

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The 2018 version of the National Farm Toy Show in Dyersville, Iowa, started sunny and ended soggy, but in-between was filled with activities and fun for all.
Several indoor vendors said Friday was slower than usual, but that Saturday bounced back with healthy sales. "Yesterday was down," said Greg Blank, who had a vendor table in the new gym at Beckman High School. "But today was OK. Today was better." 
Greg began collecting farm toys about 1981 and then selling about 10 years later. Also helping at his table were his wife, Jeanie, and children, Keegan and Lauren, all of Jefferson, Wis. His daughter, Lauren, brought displays to the National Farm Toy Show for several years so that also involved the family.
For the Blanks, the National Farm Toy Show is a family affair.
Brian and Lisa Spatz of Lincoln, Neb., also noted a smaller crowd on Friday but were happy with sales on Saturday at their Spatz Farm Toys table in one of the classrooms in the high school Their son also attended the show with them; an older daughter was there in previous years until she entered college - making it a family affair for the Spatzes as well.
In addition to setting up their table at the National Farm Toy Show, the Spatzes are busy preparing to host the Husker Toy and Buckle Show, which will be held Jan. 20, 2019, in Lincoln, Neb. That show was started and run for many years by Brian's father, Dave, and Pat Bartek died this past spring, but not before passing the show onto the younger Spatzes.
Outdoor vendors were busy on Friday, when it was sunny, but saw their crowds decrease on Saturday afternoon as clouds rolled in and eventually rain began to fall.
The parking lot in front of Beckman High school was filled to capacity by about 8:45 a.m. on Saturday and remained full for the day.

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When he penned the words, "to thine own self be true," Shakespeare may have had John Dohrman in mind. Joh, of Sweet Springs, Mo., knows who he is and what he is. "I'm a farmer. My dad was a farmer. My sons are farmers. And I hope my grandson will be a farmer, too," he shared.
John loves farming, but he also loves collecting toy tractors, and his passion in life has always been tractor pulling.
John's father, Forest Dohrman, began farming on land John's grandfather owned south of Sweet Springs in the late 1940s. South Fork Creek runs through the Doorman land, so around 1972, Forest Dohrman named his farm "South Fork Farms."
"I started farming full time in 1980 when I was 19 years old," John said.
"Dad, my brother, Dennis, and I farmed together for 12 years."
Today, South Fork Farms has 4,500 acres and grows corn, soybeans, and wheat. The Dohrmans also raise 100 head of beef cattle and 300 farrow hogs.
"I love farming the land my grandfather purchased," John said. "I especially love the fact that South Fork Farms is a family operation. Dad died in 1992, but Dennis and his son, Adam, and I and my son, Keith, all work together each day. There is a strong continuity in our family as each succeeding generation stays on the land. Even my son, Tyler, is in the farming business, working for Ziegler Ag Equipment. I hope one day to see my grandson, Hudson, join me so the tradition fo a Dohrman working our land continues unbroken."
John is equally proud of his daughters-in-law. Keith is married to Ana, a speech pathologist, and Tyler is married to Emily, who will graduate in May as a doctor of veterinarian medicine.
Like most farm boys, as a child John alternated his time between helping his dad farm and playing with farm toys.
"I spent many happy hours farming the sandbox," he said. "One of the first toy tractors I remember owning was an Allis-Chalmers 190 that Junior Scott, owner of the local Allis-Chalmers dealership, Scott Implement in Sweet Springs, gave to Dad when he purchased a real 190 for the farm. I was about 5 years old when Dad bought the 190, and he set the model 190 aside because he did not want me tearing it up. It was five or six years later before he actually gave the toy to me to play with, which maybe be the primary reason I still have this toy tractor in my model collection."

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