Relocation drives Illinois tractor enthusiast to sell off tractor collection at No Reserve
Byron Johnson’s 1959 FARMALL 460
Moving is a big undertaking, especially for those who tend to lay roots wherever they reside. As the packing begins and one starts to tuck away belongings for the big day, it often becomes clear just how much has actually accumulated over the years. While one could, in theory, jam it all into boxes, just to sort it out when settling into the new dwelling, the truth is that sometimes it’s better to just let some things go. Facing a big move, Byron Johnson of Barrington Hills, Illinois, is taking on the task of picking and choosing what will stay and what will go with him as he moves on to the next stage of his life. And after years spent enjoying his four fine vintage and collectible tractors, he has ultimately decided to pass them on to the next eager enthusiast by offering them at no reserve this November 19-21 at Gone Farmin’s Fall Premier auction in Davenport, Iowa.
Raised an Iowa farm boy, Johnson grew up, went to college and eventually moved to Chicago in 1962, where he would work in public accounting for the next 38 years of his life. In 1987, he and his wife decided to deepen their roots in the region by purchasing 10 acres of land in nearby Barrington Hills, Illinois. With the previous owner of the property being a horse owner that used five of those acres for pasture, it gave Johnson the perfect reason to return to his own farming heritage. “I said, you know, I really need something big to do that pasture,” he said. “Mowing 10 acres with a riding mower, it would take a while. So, that was a really, really good excuse for the first one.”
Johnson said he “would have killed for an M Farmall” as a kid, and as such, he reached out to his brother-in-law, who was a farmer in Iowa at the time, to begin the search. The pair unfortunately couldn’t locate a Farmall M, though they eventually did come across a pair of Farmall 460s, and Johnson opted to purchase the 1959 model that came with a bush hog and an 8-foot blade. “My driveway is about a quarter of a mile … you can plow a lot of snow with an 8-foot blade and a 460 Farmall with chains on,” he said. “So, for the next year or so, I used the 460 to bush hog the second five acres, and I used the blade to do the driveways, that kind of stuff.”
While he now had a functioning tractor to tend to his new property, Johnson’s search for a Farmall M continued, and though he would never come across a true Farmall M, he did find something that would help to fill the void. “We came across a Super M-TA in Iowa, so I had it redone and brought it in,” he said. “It was just sort of a toy, because I couldn’t put a bush hog on it. It’s like people have a favorite car; you always liked a certain item, and that’d be the M Farmall. That’s how it started.”
Read more here.
Leave a Reply