Recent additions to collection

[arikispencer]

Howdy all,

I just thought a few of you might like to see some of the recent additions to our collection.
I’m over in Australia so i suppose some of what i get is going to be very different to some of the things you fellas over in England get.

I Put an add in Australia’s “The Old Machinery Magazine” advertising for wanting the Small Howard rotary hoe models like the Foxie and the Farmette, i got a few calls from various parts of Australia, One fella who called me was on the Gold coast, very close to 2000Km’s away from me, and while he didn’t have anything id advertised for as such he did have a couple of things i didn’t, 2 of which are quite rare even here where the were built. He told me he had a Howard rotary hoe, a Howard terrier and a Howard hauler, now I’ve bought a lot of machines and its amazing how many people don’t actually know what they have and you have to ask them questions to work out what machine the person is actually trying to sell you, so the Howard rotary hoe turned out to be a Howard junior for $300, extremely common and i have quite a few of them, the Howard terrier turned out to be a Howard Kelpie which is extremely rare with only around 1200 being built, and they are very sought after machines, he wanted $500, an absolute bargain in our opinion. Oddly enough the Howard Hauler was exactly that a Howard Hauler and for a mere $700, and after having watched a half destroyed hauler sell on ebay for over $1500 just 3 weeks pryor so we was quite keen on them, then an hour or 2 after having called me the fella texted some photos through to me, the 3 machines were fully restored beautifully.

After all this we started looking into the cost of getting it all freighted down to us in SW Victoria, just 50 k’s from Portland. Unfortunately This worked out to be far more expensive then making the drive ourselves. And of Course both dad and I work full time so the only time we could make a trip was in the week leading up to Christmas when Dad had the time off and I could get the time off that we’d need.

To make us even more keen to make the big trip i got another call from a fella just an hour and a half further up country who again didn’t have what i advertised for but had some Howard parts for sale. I wasn’t really interested in more parts until he mentioned prices, bargains no mater the condition of the machines, so i asked for pictures and prices and weather the weekend before Christmas suited him, and it did, so we added the extra to our trip making it more worth it meaning we could fully load the Ute and trailer or near to it anyway.

He told me he had a Junior for spares, complete aside from maggie and carbie but seized $60.
Also a wide Gem with no motor for $70, later found this to be a 30in cut machine with the dual wheels, the tin work is all in really good condition, the motor of course wasn’t there and neither was the depth control the fella having used it in the restoration of his 30in cut, dual wheel Twin inline gem.
He had another gem complete aside from magneto, carbi and exhaust, again $70. What i didn’t realize until this morning that it is a 24in cut machine, not the much more common 20in machine like the other 4 gems we have. And the tin work on this machine isn’t even dented, it is absolutely immaculate, the machine looks to have done near to no work at all.
And perhaps the best thing from this fella despite being in the worst condition of the lot was a Howard kelpie wreck, including an already restored engine for it and a spare engine with the exhaust manifold broken out of it for just $120

Now as you can imagine this is starting to look like quite a load, so yes we have a fairly large trailer and a good Hilux ute for picking up the gear, but the entire trip was 4080.7 Kilometers, we had a look in a atlas and i think you could almost drive a lap of England for that, From the time we left till the time we got back was just short of 3 days, we stopped for an hour and a half to sleep the first night and for 6 hours the second night and didn’t stop the third to arrive back at home at 5 am, and the only problem we had was a bearing gave up on the trailer just 1 km from home, cant complain about that.

Now i suppose i had better attach a few pictures of the load we picked up and maybe later i will mention some of the gear the 2 fellas up country had, between them they had some beautiful machines.

-The first picture is of the Howard hauler, beautiful isn’t it.In the back of the Hauler is the
chassis and gear box of the kelpie wreck along with its engine and spare engine, all the rims
and other parts are on the ute.
-The second picture is of the trailer load, the gem at the front is the 24in cut one, the parts
not on it are in a box on the ute.
-The third picture is of the Howard Junior and half behind it the Howard kelpie, I imagine there
would be a few of the Juniors over in England but id doubt the presence of the kelpie over
there.
-The forth picture is of the whole load with the 30in cut gem without motor right there at the
back of the trailer, the rims for the dual wheels were on the ute but i dropped one there at
the back with the machine for the picture

I hope some of you get some enjoyment in looking at some of this gear, and id be happy to hear some stores about these wider cut gems and maybe some ideas for what motor i should stick on the 30in cut, i believe it originally had a twin inline on it.

Thanks.
Dan, Australia

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[charlie]

Dan, what a great account of acquiring and collecting these machines, along with some good photos. We always like to see something different. The hauler is similar to UK machines such as Wrigley, Trac Grip and Bonser.

[trustymasseyman]

Well done, many thanks for sharing your road trip and photos with us all, many thanks and happy Christmas Dan

[arikispencer]

Howdy both,

No problem I’m happy to share my stories, i could possible add some more, We bought a large portion of another members collection a while ago after he passed away. I’ve seen a few of his posts on here before i ever became a member.

I’m glad you both enjoyed my account of our recent trip to Queensland to pick the gear up.

@Charlie,
I guess all Haulers look much the same, i mean I’ve seen a number of different Lister ones, and also a different Howard one, but i do know a little about how the Howard hauler came to be. Originally Howard only made a couple to use in the assembly lines in the factory in Northmead NSW Australia to move the Rotary hoe components around etc, but when different companies went to the factory to check out new machines etc they seen these Haulers working around the factory and then the wool stores etc started requesting them so he began to mass produce them for sale.

I believe our hauler is a later one as it has pump up tires and the nice flashy Bonnet. When dad was a young fella he worked in the Portland elders Wool store and they used Howard Haulers, However their machines had solid wheels that were smaller then the 4.00-8 tires on ours.they also lacked the ‘tray back’ and basically just had the chassis so they were only almost 2 ft wide, so they were very unstable even with the addition of out riggers at the front, the wool store machines also lacked the seat so that 4 wool bales could be laid across the chassis and then the front bale could be sat on.

Thanks Dan

[Author]

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