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Everything that glitters is a gold John
Deere D Some rumors turn out to be true.
Such is the case with the mysterious "Gold Leaf Model D" tractor. While its early existence is barely documented, it can now be seen at shows in all its restored glory. The story stems from a find in the Deere & Company Archives — a September 3, 1938 article in Implement & Tractor magazine that told the tale of how the special centennial commemorative tractor ended up in Kingfisher County, Oklahoma. Solid gold dealer Having served its purposes as a showpiece during the company’s 1937 centennial year, the gold D was on display at the branch house in Kansas City. Francis Gooden of Josiah Gooden and Son, the Kingfisher John Deere dealer, spied the one-of-a-kind machine and put in a bid for it. Other dealers had also bid on it but the Gooden’s 1937 tractor sales record was so outstanding, the Company awarded them with the special tractor. The gold D arrived just in time for the Gooden dealership’s own 25th anniversary activities. After the festivities ended, the Goodens said the machine would be sold at the regular price to the first comer.
This resulted in a race between two customers —ÝMr. J.J. Haffner and Mr. G.D. Hancock. A hitch in the negotiations with Haffner led to a victory by Hancock who worked the famous tractor hard until 1955. Thar’s gold in them thar fields According to the 1938 I&T article, then-owner G.D. Hancock "swears that the gold on it somehow makes the fields cultivated with it produce bigger yields." At the time, he was using the tractor to pull his combine and plow on a half-section of wheat, said the story. In 1955, the centennial tractor was traded in to the local Massey Harris dealer (gasp!). Despite a cheap green paint job that camouflaged the faded gold, a young dealership employee named Bill Beecher, Sr. couldn’t resist the lure of the formerly Golden D. He too worked the tractor quite hard until 1970 and a little more for the next decade before it was torn apart awaiting a total overhaul. Although the Beacher family never found time to restore it, they kept the piles of parts for the potential project in the barn. Gold digger That’s where the special tractor stayed until a complicated Deere hunt connected it with current owner Charles Q. English, Sr., of Evansville, Indiana.
After countless hours of long-distance phone calls, several trips to Oklahoma, plus more than his fair share of patience and persistence, his eight-year quest finally came to fruition. Back in 1989, custom toy builders Dennis Parker and the late Lyle Dingman of Iowa first unearthed the news of a gold Model D tractor and proceeded to create a beautiful 1/16-scale version for toy collectors. English bought four of them but wasn’t content with the toy version. The avid tractor restorer began to hunt down the real one…a chase that would take him through almost 60 years of history and three generations of families from Kingfisher, Oklahoma. English started with a detailed search of Model D serial numbers, but did not find any special paint code that made the centennial tractor stand out. He asked all around that area of central Oklahoma and pursued all kinds of leads but to no avail.
Finally, he saw an ad for a Kingfisher Ford truck dealership in the High Plains Journal and thought someone there might know the whereabouts of the Hancock or Gooden families. So he called up the dealership and asked to speak with the oldest employee. That gentleman told him the Hancocks were no longer living, but George Gooden, grandson of the local John Deere dealer, was still alive. Gooden, who can be seen in the 1938 I&T article photograph as a young boy sitting on the hood with his brother, vowed to help English find the missing tractor. He later called with the name and number of Bill Beecher, Sr. However, Beecher couldn’t bear to part with the Golden D while he was alive. Soon after his father’s death in October 1997, Beecher’s grandson made contact with English to fulfill the senior Beecher’s wish that the torn-up tractor go to the persistent and patient collector. As an avid restorer who knows Model Ds inside and out, English admitted that this was by far the most worn-out D he’d ever seen. "Even hard-to-wear parts were shot!" Estimating the usage based on the wear patterns, English guesses the tractor had about 20,000 hours on it.
Gold rush When English hauled the Oklahoma scrap pile to his shop in Indiana, he knew how much work was ahead. As it turned out, English put in 625 hours of effort over the course of a year to restore the rusty relic back to its full glory. It had been painted over with a poor version of John Deere green along the way, which probably helped camouflage it from other collectors, admits English. But small bits of the gold color could still be found hidden in nooks and crannies. He used these flakes to match it to a more current "gold leaf" color for the new $4,000 paint job. To date, the "new" gold D has never been started. English fears oil leaks would wreck the beautiful paint and prefers to protect it by storing the precious cargo in an insulated trailer inside an insulated barn to keep the tractor from sweating. An electric winch helps him load and unload the tractor at shows. In fact, the restored Gold D made its debut at the National Two-Cylinder Show in Fairview, Oklahoma, July 2000 — returning to the state where it had spent most of its life. Now that’s what we call a homecoming! This topic was recently featured in articles by the Green Girl in the August 2002 issues of JOHN DEERE TRADITION and FARM COLLECTOR magazines.
Text © 2002 Brenda Kruse. Photos by Brenda Kruse unless otherwise noted. |
