The March/April 2020 issue of Antique Power magazine will be available in subscriber mailboxes and on newsstands soon. Our latest cover tractor is a 1938 Sears Economy owned by James Fred. This feature is written and photographed by James Fred.

Sears, Roebuck & Co. sold three factory-built tractors—Graham-Bradley, Bradley, and Economy—during the 1930s. I had two of these tractors, but no Economy, and it made sense to me to have at least one of each.

I commented to fellow Graham-Bradley and Sears Sold Farm Tractors Club member and Sears Economy guru, Dave Elmore, that I was interested in buying an Economy. Peru Plow & Wheel Co. in Peru, Illinois, built the tractors, and Sears sold them through its catalogs in 1938 and 1939 for $495 or more, depending on options.

Elmore and his son Chad brought pictures of a 1938 Economy to our club’s national show in Baraboo, Wisconsin, in 2015. With serial no. 1031, it is assumed to be the 31st one made—based on research that suggests the numbering started at 1001. Approximately 500 Economy tractors were built before production ended, and no. 1496 is the highest serial number known to date of tractors in preservation.

The photos showed a tractor chassis in the pasture behind the Elmore barn, a large assortment of parts, and an engine that had been salvaged from an old Ford Motor Co. Model A doodlebug. The Economy, which was about two-thirds complete, was missing its front wheels, radiator, all the sheetmetal—including the gas tank—and the platform drawbar assembly. The tractor’s known history extends to the late 1990s when Chad Elmore bought it from Robert Lawson near South Bend, Indiana.

The Elmores have been researching and collecting Sears products, such as farm wagons, horse-drawn plows and cultivators, and steel wheels, for several years. They intended to use the Economy as a parts tractor, but when they heard I was looking for one, and knowing that I enjoyed a challenge, they gathered as many parts as they could to make it a candidate for restoration. This tractor also has the rare factory pto option.

Some mystery surrounds the identity of the engineer who developed the tractor. Chad Elmore found an article from a Waterloo, Iowa, newspaper printed in May 1937 announcing that Hans T. Borsheim was leaving the engineering department of the Deere & Co. tractor works in Waterloo to become head engineer for Peru Plow & Wheel. The timing makes it plausible for him to have been involved with the Economy. Before John Deere, Borsheim worked for the Hart-Parr Co. and on the Bates Steel Mule tractor built by the Bates Machine & Tractor Co. in Joliet, Illinois. He also had several patents to his name. The Peru Plow & Wheel operated under several different names from 1851 until 1941, when it merged with the Electric Wheel Co. of Quincy, Illinois, and closed its factory.

To read more about the 1938 Sears Economy restoration pick up a copy of the March/April 2020 issue of Antique Power magazine!

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March/April 2020 Antique Power

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