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  • From: "Don Bowen" <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>
  • To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Tractor value: '50 Harvester H-4?
  • Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2008 08:05:36 -0700

> ... 1950 would be before fast hitch so if it has
any sort of three
> point
> it will be either shop built or aftermarket.

This surprised me. Prior to 1950 were Ford and
Fergason the only ones to have 3 point hitch. We did
have a '53 JD 40 that had 3ph.

I was referring to IHC products. In the early 50s they came out with a competing product called "Fast Hitch." It used snap couplers and all you had to do was back into the implement. Release was just as simple with a rope to lift the couplers. It never had the acceptance of the three point and many were converted to three point. By the 60s three point had taken over.

The three point hitch with load sensing was invented by Harry Ferguson in the 20s. His first version used a system of springs and was designed to retrofit on a Fordson tractor. Later he added hydraulics and introduced that on the David Bradley tractor, better known as the "brown tractor." In 1937 he reached the infamous "handshake deal" with Henry Ford which lead to the Ford 9N in 1939. By the end of the war Henry the second saw what a bad deal it was so made some minor changes and started selling the Ford 8N in 1948. Harry Ferguson saw what was happening and started producing tractors in Coventry England and Detroit. The English tractors used a Standard Motors Engine that would later gain fame as the power plant in the Triumph TR2, TR3, and TR4 sports cars. US and many English tractors used a Continental engine.

Harry sued Ford Motor Company and in the early 50s won the largest judgment ever against Ford at that time. Harry was a much better engineer than a businessman so sold out to Massey Harris to form the Massey Ferguson Company, still in business today. Unfortunately more than can be said about International Harvester which collapsed in 1982 with the sale of the tractor division to Case to become Case IH which is now Case New Holland. New Holland is the result of Ford spinning off its tractor business to New Holland, a company Ford had purchased in the 60s. Tenneco purchased both (along with several other companies) then merged them into CNH. The McCormick name was purchased by an English company and is producing tractors under that name in England, India, and Korea.

Don Bowen KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html




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