4-H'er Restores 130-Year-Old Corn Planter

4-H'er Restores 130-Year-Old Corn Planter PLANTERS Planters 25-6-24 Fourteen-year-old Parke Miller, Williamsburg, Iowa, was looking for a unique 4-H project last year. When he and his dad, Brad, came across an auction bill listing an old horse-drawn corn planter for sale, they decided restoring the planter would be just the thing. Brad says the circa 1870 Union Corn Planter, built by James Selby & Co., Peoria, Illinois, was in very good condition considering its age. The planter had been hanging in a barn for decades. Parke bid against two other would-be buyers, but neither of them was willing to go higher than the $210 the Millers bid. "We were surprised to be able to buy it for that," Brad says. Once they got the planter home, Parke and Brad carefully dismantled it, taking photos as they proceeded, so they'd have a record of what it looked like and how each piece fit together. Someone had painted the planter with red barn paint and the wheels had received a coat of silver. The Millers stripped dirt and old paint off the steel and wood parts. When they found orange and green paint in the grain of the stripped wood, they figured they'd found the original colors. They also discovered that the wheel spokes had originally had pinstriping on them. Parke found the original instructions for the plates printed on the underside of one of the seedbox lids. As he worked on cleaning it up, Parke also searched for printed information on the planter, hoping he could find some original literature on it. While he wasn't able to find much on that particular planter, he did find some literature on a later model Union planter. The restoration involved soaking wooden parts in linseed oil to preserve them and sandblasting metal parts. The long tongue is original. Only two of the old wooden pieces had to be replaced and as far as they know those are the only pieces on the entire planter that aren't original. Everything on the planter now works but they haven't actually used it. The planter attracted a lot of attention when Parke displayed it at his local county fair and at the Iowa State Fair. Jon Kinzenbaw, president of Kinze Mfg., Williamsburg, Iowa, was so impressed with Miller's restored planter that he's now displaying it in the company's corporate office showroom. Parke has already begun work on his project for next year's fair. He's restoring an Oliver 66 for a local tractor collector. He's still interested in learning more about his planter and would love to hear from anyone who can tell him more about it or James Selby & Co. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Parke Miller, 306 West Oak, Williamsburg, Iowa 52361 (ph 319 668-1164; E-mail: mil@avalon.net).

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