Hi all.  I thought you might enjoy seeing these old price books.  

There aren’t many pictures, just part numbers and prices, but it’s still interesting.  
Notice the dates on the one book, 1886-1922.  This was the era of the wooden harvesters.  

BP. 

I love those old books! Merry Christmas to you and your family!!
Ken

Thanks Ken.  Merry Christmas to you and yours as well.  

BP.  

Very Neat, Just thinking the food that was grown and harvested with those machines kept our ancestors going and lead to bigger faster more capable machines. Incredible history.

Thanks Steve.  It really is amazing how far we’ve come, especially in combines. Although draper headers have made a huge comeback. I haven’t taken the time to a just for inflation, but some of the prices in these are laughable.  

BP. 

Not so much here in California with the low humidity and all, but leather and canvas drapers needed adjustment and attention because of weather changes. I would think that could of been several times a day in the North American parries, on some days. Making a steel auger look real attractive back in the 50's.

With materials today that are resistant to changing weather a different ball game.

Ray is correct. Leather, wood, and canvas drapers are a pain in the rear. Draper headers feed so nice though.  When auger headers took over in the beginning of the self propelled era (1950’s), headers were pretty small, 12-16 feet.  Augers made sense for those smaller headers.  Now that headers have gotten so big, 35-50 foot, making an auger that long isn’t practical. Hence the resurgence in the draper.  These new drapers are rubberized with molded in slats. 

Drapers are very common here because of the rice farming. The local canvas shops specialized in draper manufacturing here. JM

Hi, Folks.
I have been told that Benjamin Holt sent a parts book to Florida with #111 when he sold it. The book consisted of photos of EVERY part in the machine from all the angles necessary to show ALL the dimensions and other details so that the new owners could manufacture parts for it over in Florida.

As I recollect, there was NO overnight parts delivery in those days so Ben likely 'figgered' that was the best way around the problem.

Just my 0.02.