World's Biggest Ball Of Barbed Wire

World's Biggest Ball Of Barbed Wire AG WORLD Ag World 21-2-22 The Guinness Book of World Records recently turned down a request to include a huge ball of barbed wire put together by a Texas rancher over the years. But J.C. Payne and his wife Elsie Ruth of Valley View, Texas, aren't upset. "The Guinness people don't have a ball of barbed wire in their book and they said they weren't interested in having one," says J.C. "But we know ours is the biggest ball of barbed wire anywhere in the world. "A friend of mine, Lyle Lynch, at Mesa, Ariz., made a roll that was 7 ft., 3 in. in dia. Ripley's bought it for $5,000 and it's in Ripley's (Believe It Or Not) Museum in Orlando, Fla." At the time of submission to Guinness, Payne's ball of barbed wire measured 11 ft., 6 in. in dia. and stood two stories high. It's made up of some 70 miles of wire and Payne estimates it weighs around 12 tons. Payne, 76, is no stranger to world class achievements. Several years ago, he beat out the previous ball-of-twine world record holder with his own 13-ft., 2-in. dia. ball of bale twine, which he eventually sold for $21,000 to Ripley's Museum in Branson, Mo. "I started collecting barbed wire in 1966. About three years ago, I began rolling all I had into a big ball after I'd sold my ball of twine," explains Payne. "I get wire from anywhere they're tearing out fence, once traveling 180 miles to get a lot of large spools." He keeps the big ball of rusted wire out behind the barn at Elsie Ruth's request. He regularly adds to the ball by having his wife pull him around it with a garden tractor. He mounts the wire in a trailer with a telescoping spindle to accommodate different size rolls. To keep the ball symmetrical as it grows, Payne uses a Kubota 4-WD tractor to turn it. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, J.C. Payne, 1746 East FM 922, Valley View, Texas 76272 (ph 817 637-2548).

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