A piece of agricultural history is going on the auction block later this month.
Don Ellingson of Springbank, Alta., is selling off his legacy, putting 91 antique tractors up for sale, some dating back as far as 1927.
The sale was made necessary as Ellingson prepares to move off his acreage as he deals with kidney health issues and looks for a donor.
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He has been collecting antique tractors for 40 years, and at one point owned 110 of the machines.
His interest started through an antique tractor club in his area.
He is intrigued by the history of a machine whose working principles are very simple and yet has helped power food production. For a mechanic like himself, the appeal is understanding the straight-forward mechanical principles that make the machines work, tracing the evolution of the engine and agricultural technology from the late 1920s through the 1950s.
“Suck (intake), squeeze (compression), bang (combustion) and blow (exhaust) — that’s all you need to make it go. It’s the same on a tractor or a lawnmower or any engine,” said Ellingson with a chuckle.
“Any four-cycle engine, that’s all you need to make it go. Tractor technology was used in cars, but earlier. That’s true today up to the newest combine. Most of the technology used in the newest combines was used in cars 10 years ago.”
All of Ellingson’s tractors are the Massey-Harris brand, which continued until 1959 and has direct links in the family tree to Vincent Massey, Canada’s first Canadian-born governor general.
The federal government had shares in Massey up until the early 1990s. During the Second World War, steel was limited for manufacturing, and Massey won the rights to make the first combines.
“The old ways of combining took a lot of people. Now it was down to a one-driver combine,” said Ellingson.
After the war, servicemen were given the option of a pension or a tractor, 80 acres of land, a cultivator, a disc and a plow.
Massey had been building tanks and self-propelled artillery but switched to tractors using left over parts from the tanks.
Ellingson has some of that Second World War history in his tractors with different serial numbers on various parts, showing how tractors were thrown together right after the war with steel that was available.
“They were only sold in Western Canada,” said Ellingson, adding he got almost as much thrill hunting down and finding antique tractors as he has had buying them.
Ellingson has sold reproduction tractor parts for 25 years through Steiner Tractor Parts, a Michigan company. He got the job as he was hunting for tractor parts for his hobby.
Friends and colleagues were wondering where he was getting his parts, so he thought he might as well use his connections to start a business and opened up Tune-Rite Tractor Parts in Springbank, Alta.
Another unique item Ellingson has for sale is an orchard tractor for working through the trees. With tinted shields on it, it gives off a sleek racing vibe.
“It looks like a race car, but it’s not. It only goes five m.p.h. Whenever anyone sees it, they ask, ‘does it go fast?’ Yeah, about five m.p.h.,” said Ellingson.
EG Auctions will be doing an online auction from July 14-19, hoping for a reach past Alberta, and into British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. A viewing will take place the week before at Springbank.
Along with the antique tractors, Ellingson will also be selling new and old tractor parts, making for 700 lots for viewing.
