How
do I know for sure…
Ok, ok, you're
sitting there saying it's all well and good that I claim to know when these
tractors and things were made and so on, but can I prove it. The answer is
….probably.
To understand
why I say that, you need to know a couple things. One is that I'm a cautious
person. I am very hesitant about making absolute statements. Second is that my
data pool is very large for this sort of thing, and I have analyzed it VERY
carefully in the process of writing a book on these companies and machines. A
few of my data pool elements:
Original advertising
on ALL machines built by the company, and not one or two pieces, but rather
over 100 pieces of literature have been scrutinized for hours.
Nearly 1000 serial
numbers and associated machine data from all types of syndicate machines. I
have personally seen and examined over 150 syndicate machines of nearly all the
known manufactured types.
Original owners
manuals
Historical documents,
most from the Minnesota Historical Society in Minneapolis/St. Paul.
Trade publications
from the times in which these machines were built and sold.
After a while,
it seemed as though I knew the men who ran these companies very well. For
example, I think I know that Harold L. Downing was a risk taker, a bold
businessman, very frugal, and was concerned about the quality of his products.
Anyway, if you
would like to more about why I think I know about these tractors and companies,
please feel free to write. I have an open mind, and have done this research
because I could not get an accurate answer anywhere else.
You can reach me
here.