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Hello Everyone,
Another Spring is upon us, time to fire up the rototiller or rototillers as the case may be. I just revamped the Ariens, German, and Other European pages. After several attempts I heard from Daniel Ariens, President of Ariens Corporation, he offered some information I didn't have and corrected a few mistakes. One major item is that Ariens family has not been involved with Brillion Iron Works since 1933. I appeared to have made him aware that putting the company history together in a book form would be a good thing. Thanks again Mr. Ariens and your staff. In a 1960 magazine I found two ads for Bungartz machinery that appears to be offered for the first time in America since 1939. And on ebay.com I acquired a 1932 French magazine with an ad for a walk-behind SOMUA cultivators. The picture is pour but the information is superb. Oh yeah! its in French. I meet a former Frazer dealer and visited him at his home in Reading PA. That was the first time I had ever seen some of the attachments. Peter had a V-belt pulley, Furrower and about 5 Rototillers. He had been at the York Factory numerous times and help got rid of some of the material when the factory closed. Peter explained to me that York PA was never put on the data tags. So hopefully I can get the serial number list from Frazer Farm Equipment find a machine made in York for the museum there. I don't own a Howard GEM but I did acguire a J.A.P. 600cc engine and a Howard 810cc twin engine. The J.A.P. engine is missing some major parts, including the flywheel, I traded a Briggs Model B engine for it. The Howard twin was given to me by a local nurserymen who uses several Howard GEM's at his farm. The person who gave me the Howard twin also explained to me that Howards GEM's came in two different speed version. The slow speed for the J.A.P. operating at 1,800 r.p.m or the Howard twin which operate at 2000 r.p.m. and the high speed version designed for the Wisconsin AEN(9.2 hp) which operate at 3,600 r.p.m. or the TF (16.4 h.p) at 2,600 r.p.m. |  |
For those of you whom are not aware I'm attempting to put all this material into a book. I just sent a draft to a publisher for review and comments. At that time I had over 26,000 words and 230 pages. The changes I made to the Website were not included in the draft. The letter from Daniel Ariens was in my mail the day I mailed the draft.
New material comes in bunches then it drys up and all of a sudden alot of new material crops up. The Bungartz and SOMUA material appeared the same week after years of not finding anything on these two brands. I was told by Mark Bookout who is writing a book on the Standard, Viking , and Kinkade lines of Garden Tractors that anything we print will be seen as gospel and we both want to make our books as accurate as possible. But sometimes material from the same source or company contradict, I have noted some of these contradictions in my text. We're not talking about another Enro but some of these companies fudged about equipment, sales, and how solvent they were. 
I visited the York County Heritage Trust Industrial & Agricultural Museum in York Pennsylvania, there I offered to find a Frazer Rototiller "Made in York" and donate it to the museum. If you have a "York Made" Rototiller that is complete, need not run but not a basket case and are interested in getting rid of it, please contact me. Also if you have extra copies of Frazer literature with the York name on it please contact them or me. 250 E. Market Street York, PA. 17403 717-848-1587 The Industrial & Agricultural Museum is located at: York, Pa. |