Farm Toy Fancier
Wisconsin West Magazine, March/April 2006
By Buz Swerkstrom
Bruce Gustafson never had a pedal tractor when growing up on a farm in the 1950s and early 1960s. He always wanted one, though.
In line with poet William Wordsworth’s observation that “the child is father of the man,” Gustafson now owns more than 100 pedal tractors, some of which were made when he was a toddler.
Gustafson and his wife, Patsy, collect pedal tractors and smaller farm toys. They also sell, buy and trade farm toys at their home-based store in northern Polk County and at annual farm toy shows in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Like tens of thousands of other farm toy fanciers, they feel a powerful pull from tiny tractors.
“We both enjoy it,” Bruce says of their joint hobby.
In fall 2004 they sold their 35 dairy cows to devote more time to their Leaning Pine Farm Toys business. (The leaning pine of the business name is a tree beside the end of their driveway.) “We had to choose between pushing this hard or milking cows, and this is a lot more fun,” Bruce says.
Their business is still essentially a sideline. Patsy works fulltime as office manager at a dairy co-op, and Bruce works seasonally at a lumberyard.
Fifteen to 20 weekends a year they travel to farm toys shows, about half of which are in western Wisconsin, at such locations as Marshfield, Rice Lake, Stanley-Boyd, Thorp, Tomah and Turtle Lake. Most are one-day shows. Some shows include crafts as well.
Since building a farm toy store next to their garage in 2003, they have had an annual Christmas open house at their Cushing area farm the first weekend of December. Their store, built when their hobby/business outgrew their garage, is truly off the beaten path, along a township road in a sparsely populated area.
“We enjoy visiting with people,” Patsy says about their home show and the road shows.
“Three-fourths of the clientele are farmers, or grew up on a farm,” Bruce says. “They have some farming background of some sort.”
Some social observers see a connection between the fact that farm toy collecting gained popularity as many small-scale farmers were forced out of agriculture in the past few decades. They suggest farm toys nurture nostalgia.
Collectors can choose from six scale-model sizes. The most popular sizes are the 1/16th (10 or 12 inches long) and 1/64th scales.
Bruce had “a few” farm toys when he was a child, “but not a lot. Everything I had was pretty much plastic – cheaper. And that was fine. I was fortunate enough to have a few toys, and that was fine. I was satisfied.”
Bruce began collecting about 20 years ago after his mother, Margaret, gave him a 1/16th scale John Deere tractor he had admired in a magazine. His father, Russell, used only Farmall tractors on his farm.
As Bruce started picking up other farm toys, Patsy quickly joined in on the thrill of the hunt.
Pedal tractors, now their collecting specialty, didn’t enter the picture until 1998. In that line, Oliver models are the favorite of both.
“Neither one of us grew up with Olivers,” Patsy says, “but we fell in love with Oliver pedals.”
A year after their pedal push began, the Gustafsons bought a farm toy collection from a Grantsburg man who had terminal cancer and wanted to dispose of his collection so his wife wouldn’t have to deal with it after his death. The collection included one hard-to-find, detailed tractor they wanted and a lot of items they didn’t particularly want. They went to a show to sell the other items, loved that experience, and started buying other collections so they could be dealers as well as collectors.
“You might not sell (at a show), but you might buy a collection or sell something down the road,” Patsy says.
They keep most of the pedal tractors they find for their personal collection. For all practical purposes, they no longer actively collect the 1/16th scale items that used to constitute the heart of their collection.
“We buy toys,” Bruce says. “We enjoy ‘em while we have ‘em, and when they’re sold someone else can enjoy ‘em. That’s kind of the principle we work on.”
While there are toy implements in every scale, tractors
are to most farm toy collections what books are to public libraries.
“Kids want to play with the implements more so,” Patsy says.
There even are implements sized to match pedal tractors. Patsy says “they’re cute,” but “take up a lot of space, so even the collector of pedals doesn’t usually buy many of them.” The Gustafsons have sold most of the ones they have owned.
Some of their new items come from distributors, but most of the Gustafson’s stock has been built through the acquisition of collections.
John Deere model tractors make up the largest portion of their stock. John Deere toys are the most popular because people are most familiar with them.
“And John Deere puts out a lot more stuff,” Bruce says.
Most 1/16th scale tractors are worth between $30 and $50, including the display box.
Bruce says having the original packaging can be critical to value.
“That’s 50 percent, almost of the value of it,” he says. “Not so much in the new stuff, but in the older stuff especially.”
Custom made farm toys – items made one at a time, by hand – are considerably more valuable than mass-produced items, generally speaking.
Collector editions made in limited numbers also are more sought-after, and so more valuable. Most collector editions mark a major anniversary.
The mecca of the American farm toy world is Dyersville, Iowa, a small town near moviedom’s baseball Field of Dreams and home of the largest farm toy manufacturing company and the National Farm Toy Museum. The first weekend of November Dyersville hosts the annual National Farm Toy Show, the world’s largest toy show. Perhaps 700 to 800 dealers participate.
“People come from all over the world for that show,” Bruce says.
The Gustafsons have visited the Dyersville show the last two years. They are on a waiting list for a dealer spot.
“It can be anywhere from two to seven years,” Bruce says, “and we just got on the list.”
Actually, they aren’t sure if they want to set up a sales table there or just continue to go as customers.
“It’s fun to go and look and buy,” Patsy says.
Fancy that.
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