Malcolm Collum's document titled "The Care and Preservation of
Historic Motorized Vehicles" is available through The Henry Ford's
website under the Benson Ford Research Center link, under "Caring for
Artifacts."  This is a good introduction to the philosophy, methods, and
materials that can be used to stabilize and maintain historic motorized
vehicles including farm machinery.
 
    I have attended a couple of hands-on workshops lead by Malcolm to
demonstrate these simple, low-cost preservation approaches and found
this to be a very practical approach that could certainly be implemented
with a volunteer group working with a collection of motorized vehicles.
Malcolm is now chief conservator at the Smithsonian's National Air and
Space Museum where you might contact him for additional information.
 
    As others have posted, conservation of original finishes, original
parts, and even retaining field modifications are the preferable
standard for machinery artifacts in museums.  "Last used" condition
would be my first preference for most agricultural equipment being
preserved in a museum collection.  However, much agricultural machinery
has already been aggressively stripped and "restored" or is very
deteriorated before it gets to a museum collection and various levels of
restoration may be desired for interpretation.  
 
    Private tractor collectors now have a deep and rich network of both
information on original factory specifications and colors as well as an
ever expanding commercial base of reproduction parts that can make it
possible to do very accurate restorations.  However, most private
collectors are now expecting a level of cosmetic finishing and detailing
that is far beyond the level of fit and finish that most farm machinery
had originally when it left the factory.  Recently the pendulum does
seem to be swinging back a bit from a preference for "over restoration"
back towards preservation of original examples when they can be found.
There have been so many examples of some tractor models restored to a
high degree of accuracy over the past two decades or so that some
collectors are now looking to have something a little different from
everyone else at the shows by maintaining original or last used examples
or adding implements. 
 
    Assessing the present state of each artifact in your collection is
necessary to get a handle on where along the spectrum of preservation to
restoration any given project may fall, taking into account balancing
preservation verses interpretation within the museum's particular
mission and location.  Some agricultural museums lean towards preserving
equipment the way it looked while being used, even though sometimes it
was highly modified from factory original condition and may be
significantly weathered.  Other agricultural museums want to present
tractors restored to look like factory-new condition.  And there is a
wide range of approaches falling somewhere in between, further
complicated by whether some or frequent functional use is involved.
Private collectors are usually going to lean towards restoration and
will likely have more resources to do accurate restoration than most
museums.  Therefore, I encourage museums to try find a niche for the
preservation of farm machinery in "last used" condition or to preserve
unrestored examples that can serve as documentary references in the
future as private collectors continue to restore the every smaller pool
of unrestored examples left in existence.
    
    If preservation has been considered and rejected in favor of
restoration concerning a particular machine then there are many, many
potential resources in the form of national clubs with web sites,
magazines, and various advisory panels that could assist with fully
documenting and authenticating all aspects of total tractor or truck
restoration.  Accurate restoration is expensive, even if the labor is
donated and the machine is reasonably complete mechanically.  Just
gaskets, paint, and decals alone have gotten pretty expensive if the
proper materials are used.
 
    I can give you further information on a couple of case studies of
tractor restorations done with museum conservation in mind as much as
possible if you are interested, including the restoration of the
Smithsonian's 1903 Hart-Parr tractor to operating condition for its
100th anniversary and the restoration of the Indiana State Museum's 1929
Rumely Oil Pull tractor, which is occasionally operated for
interpretative programming:
 
http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object.cfm?key=35&objkey=157
 
http://www.in.gov/ism/Exhibits_Collections/Collection/ait_rumley.aspx
 
Todd Stockwell
Curator of Agriculture, Industry and Technology
Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites
650 W. Washington Street
Indianapolis, Indiana  46204-2725
(317) 232-8270
 
 

________________________________

From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Julie Blood
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 11:29 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Restoration Policy



My museum has a large collection of agricultural equipment (e.g.
tractors, combines, trucks, etc).  I have a group of volunteers who do
all of the restoration work.  Since I am new to the museum I am hearing
that the volunteers do not always accurately restore the equipment to
the way it was.  I was wondering if anybody else has run into this
problem and if so how did you handle it?  I am also looking to implement
a restoration policy, any help on this would be appreciated!  Have a
great day!

 

Thanks,

Julie

 

 

Julie Blood

Collections and Exhibit Manager

San Joaquin County Historical Society & Museum

P.O. Box 30, Lodi, CA 95241

(209) 331-2055   

(209) 953-3460

[log in to unmask]

www.sanjoaquinhistory.org 

 

========================================================= Important
Subscriber Information: 

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at
http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed
information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail
message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should
read "help" (without the quotes). 

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message
to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read
"Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes). 


=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).