-Farm News photos by Darcy Dougherty Maulsby
Some of Paul Vogel's tractor collection are on display recently during a June auction, where he sold his collection, which took 32 years to accumulate. Here is a a row of International tractors

LOHRVILLE — Any farm auction stirs up plenty of emotion, from anxiety to uncertainty to excitement. When Paul Vogel and his wife, Sharon, thought about selling their collection of 62 Oliver and International tractors, it wasn’t an easy decision.

“We’d collected tractors for 32 years,” said Paul Vogel, who farmed southeast of Lohrville for years.

The Vogels, who have been married 57 years, started thinking about selling some of their tractors a few years ago. When they decided the time was right to auction off their collection this year, they called Sale Barn Realty & Auction of Pocahontas. “We said we had a few tractors to sell,” said Paul, who turns 80 this July.

In a way, the tractors in the Vogel’s collection were part of the family — or least a big part of many family memories. Like most collections, this one started simply enough, when P.M. Lauver, a mechanic from Lohrville, had an Oliver 80 tractor available years ago. “It was frozen, and we got it going again,” recalled Paul, who retired from farming about 12 years ago.

This sparked Paul’s interest in Olivers. “My uncles farmed with Oliver tractors,” he added. “Oh, by the way, I bought another tractor” soon became a common refrain in the Vogel home.

-Farm News photos by Darcy Dougherty Maulsby
-Farm News photo by Darcy Dougherty Maulsby An interested potential buyer looks over the selection of Oliver tractors at a recent sale, featuring Paul Vogel's collection, at Sale Barn Realty & Auction of Pocahontas.

When Paul started looking for an Oliver Super 44, he found one in North Carolina. The 1957 tractor with a one-row cultivator came from a tobacco farmer near Greensboro. “We wanted to spend more time around there to see their type of agriculture, but a hurricane was coming in,” Sharon said.

When the Vogels decided to add a 1900 Oliver to their collection, they found a 1962 industrial model FWA in Wisconsin, where it had been used for plowing. This tractor caught the attention of Ryan Roossinck of Tractor Zoom, who featured this rare, ear-splitting machine on

Successful Farming’s website in late June 2022, ahead of the Vogel’s June 29 auction.

“The Oliver 1900 was a barnyard bully,” Roossinck wrote. “It was loud, obnoxious, heavy, and made no apologies for itself. It should’ve been sold with a case of shooter’s earmuffs — enough for the operator and his family, as well as the families of his two closest neighbors!”

Oliver produced the 1900 Industrials from 1960 to 1964, Roossinck added. “Oliver believed in listening to its customers. When customers told the company hired men were becoming harder to find, and more expensive to keep, Oliver did what it could. The company gave customers more power, figuring that with added power, it could help offset the lack of labor.”

-Farm News photos by Darcy Dougherty Maulsby
Paul Vogel's collection of tractors is on display at auction in June.

The Oliver 1900 was the biggest of the two tractors launched in 1960. “The Oliver 1900 was a thoroughly modern tractor,” Roossinck wrote. “For all the noise those tractors made, they sure could put in some work.”

Potential buyers hailed from California to Canada

Once the Vogels decided to sell their Oliver 1900 and other tractors in their collection, their children, grandchildren and neighbors helped them prepare for the June 29 auction. “It’s a lot of work to get ready for a sale like this,” said Marcus Vogel, 30, who noted the process

started in March.

He’s not kidding. The Vogels have six machine sheds on their farm. Many were packed with tractors of all sizes, colors and models. “Some of the tractors were restored, while some were in their ‘everyday clothes,'” said Paul, whose father moved to the family’s farm in 1948

-Farm News photos by Darcy Dougherty Maulsby
The Oliver Farm Equipment Company formed in 1929 after the merger of Hart-Parr Tractor Works and several other companies. By the mid-1930s, when the company introduced the Oliver Hart-Parr 70, the Oliver name on the front of the tractor was in big letters, and the Hart-Parr name was in little letters.

from the Churdan area.

As the June 29 sale day approached, potential buyers from California to Canada to Australia took note of Vogel’s tractor collection. Some joined the online bidding. Many were interested in the various Oliver tractors, including the Oliver 1855 (which brought $22,500 on

sale day), the Oliver 1900 (which brought $18,000), and the 1972 Oliver 2655 (which was only made for one year, brought $17,500 on sale day, and is on its way to Michigan). The 1958 Oliver Super 99 diesel also caught the attention of a buyer in Canada, who clinched the deal and is taking the tractor to Saskatchewan.

One reason buyers still like Olivers is that these machines were never shy about horsepower. “When they updated their Super Series tractors to the 3-Digit tractors for 1958, the Super 99 became the 990,” noted the Successful Farming article. “The styling was updated a bit, the frame got beefier, and Oliver turned up the power a little,” putting it miles ahead of the competition.

International 1206 stayed close to home

-Farm News photos by Darcy Dougherty Maulsby
This 1958 Oliver Super 99 diesel, which the Vogel family of Lohrville sold at auction on June 29, caught the attention of a buyer in Canada. The tractor is headed to Saskatchewan.

Iowa was the epicenter for some of Oliver tractors’ biggest publicity efforts in the late 1950s. When Oliver introduced the Hundred Series the week before Thanksgiving 1959, the company flew their dealers into Waterloo for a two-day expo where the sales team really pulled

out the stops, Roossinck noted.

The big entertainment for the show included the Oliverettes–eight Charles City housewives (and a couple of alternates) hand-selected by the company, he added. “The ladies paraded around the Hippodrome in Waterloo on Oliver 770s in a square-dance routine they’d been practicing for months. It was also a subtle reminder to the dealers that the tractors they still had on the lot were agile and easy to drive.”

From the Oliverettes to the introduction of the new tractors, the launch was a big success.

When the tractors arrived on dealers’ lots in the spring of 1960, sales were brisk. Farmers liked the new look and loved the power.

-Farm News photos by Darcy Dougherty Maulsby
Paul Vogel's collection of tractors includes several Olivers.

-Farm News photos by Darcy Dougherty Maulsby
Paul Vogel's collection of tractors includes several Olivers.

-Farm News photo by Darcy Dougherty Maulsby
Paul Vogel has collected tractors for 32 years, so selling them wasn't an easy decision, but the soon-to-be 80-year-old and his wife Sharon recently decided the time was right.