I started out collecting just a couple years ago.  But there&#039;s more history before that.  I live on a farm which we now rent out.  We farmed with a WD-45 Allis that came with the farm when we bought it, and an Oliver 88 Row Crop NF that originally came from my Grandpa which he bought new.  He also ran an Oliver dealership a few miles from where I live.  I was a young lad when we were farming (I&#039;m 22 now).  The WD-45 was the tractor we used the most because it was a wide front and was a good original tractor.  The 88 was good but it was unhandy for most jobs because it had a loader on.  But it just seemed like the WD always needed something.  We had such trouble getting it to charge, bad votage regulator after another, so many times we had to crank start it.  Other annoyances like the steering locking up when turning one way, rough idle, etc.  But as long as we had that 88 I can never remember a time where it didn&#039;t start, didn&#039;t do what we needed it to, and we never needed to do anything mechanically to it.  I can think of more than one occasion where we had to bale hay with the 88 and the loader out front because the WD-45 was out of commission.  That was the history for us behind Oliver.  The collecting didn&#039;t start until fairly recently.  We still have that 88 we had on the farm.  My dad got an 88 widefront from his dad but it had a bad engine-a broken camshaft.  He got the engine fixed and a week after we got it in brought it to the local tractor pull and he took first place in the 7,000 lb class.  After that and my cousin starting to collect them and seeing how much fun it is to restore them, I got my first, an Oliver 60.  After that it snowballed.  The household is now up to 11 with 1 on the way.  Here they are:
&#039;38 Oliver 70 Row Crop NF
&#039;47 Oliver 60 RC NF
&#039;48 Oliver 60 RC NF cast rear
&#039;48 Oliver 60 WF
&#039;49 Oliver 77 RC NF
&#039;52 Oliver 77 Standard
&#039;52 Oliver 88 RC NF
&#039;52 Oliver 88 RC WF
&#039;50 Oliver 88 Standard
&#039;53 Oliver 66 RC WF
&#039;53 Oliver 99 gas
&#039;55 Oliver Super 77 WF
&#039;57 Oliver Super 55 gas
&#039;63 Oliver 1900 MFWD
&#039;68 Oliver 2150 MFWD
Eventually we hope to have them all restored.  Right now the &#039;47 60 is being restored.  What attracted me to Olivers is a lot of things.  They dominate at our local tractor pulls, they are really easy to work on, they are a good looking tractor, they are a pleasure to drive, and the industry &amp;quot;firsts&amp;quot; they had.  That&#039;s my story, now lets hear yours.  Jeff.

[Edited on 2-1-2004 by Jeff]