CENTRE HALL — The Nittany Antique Machinery Association held its annual fall show on Sept. 5 through 8 at Penn’s Cave.
NAMA was formed in 1975 when some avid antique equipment collectors decided that central Pennsylvania contained enough interest and equipment to organize a club and hold a show of its own.
Each year, one brand of farm equipment is featured at this show. This year it was the Massey-Harris, Ferguson and Massey-Ferguson lines of equipment. NAMA secretary Bob Corman said there were more than 600 tractors registered at the show, with about 200 of them being of the Massey-Harris or Massey-Ferguson brand.
The company was founded in 1847 in Newcastle, Ontario, by Daniel Massey as the Newcastle Foundry and Machine Manufactory. Initially, it made some of the world’s first mechanical threshers, first by assembling parts from the United States but eventually designing and building its own equipment. The company was renamed the Massey Manufacturing Co. and in 1879 moved to Toronto, where it soon became one of the city’s leading employers.
In 1891, Massey Manufacturing merged with A. Harris, Son & Co. Ltd to become Massey-Harris Limited, and became the largest agricultural equipment maker in the British Empire.
Massey Ferguson Limited was formed by the 1953 merger of Massey Harris of Canada and the Ferguson Company in Britain. It was based in Brantford, Ontario until 1988. The company transferred its headquarters to Buffalo, N.Y., in 1997 before it was acquired by AGCO, the new owner of its former competitor Allis-Chalmers. Massey Ferguson is one of several brands produced by AGCO and remains a major seller around the world.
Among the sea of tractors shown were two unusual examples of the thrift and ingenuity of Americans during the Great Depression of the 1930s. They were tractors, called “Doodle Bugs,” made from Ford Model A cars from 1928 and 1929. Both units were shown by Len and Peggy Kern of Mapleton Depot.
The idea of the homemade tractor came from several catalogs and implement companies in the mid-1930s. It is said that as many as 80 companies manufactured conversion kits for the ubiquitous Ford Model T and Model A cars of the day.
In the hit and miss engine displays was the Maneval family from Juniata County. Greg Maneval and his sons, Max and Reggie, showed about a dozen engines, nearly all running. Some were driving water pumps and a corn sheller, showing spectators how these engines were used back in the day.
“It adds interest to the display for people to see what they were used for,” said Greg Maneval. He noted that he and his sons have been coming to the NAMA shows for many years.
A demonstration of a working sawmill, powered by a coal-fired steam tractor via a flat leather belt, was performed for the huge crowd of spectators during the show. The nearly silent idling engine emitted a loud chuffing sound when logs met the saw blade.
Antique tractor pulls were held at the show, and parades of tractors and equipment were held at 11 a.m. each day. The show also featured a huge flea market with hundreds of vendors.
