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when were my tractors made, specifically?

K

knbshn

New User
My six Farmalls were made between 1940 and 1952, according to their serial numbers. I had this dumb idea to figure out on what day they were produced. Knowing how many were produced for each year, it wasn't hard to come up with how many were produced each day, PROVIDED they worked 365 days a year (366 in leap years), weekends and holidays AND produced the same amount each and every day. Then it wasn't hard to refigure it all out considering if they didn't work weekends.
Here's my question, were they given Holidays off and what Holidays would there have been during the 1940's and/or early 50's? (what year was Memorial Day started as a Holiday?).

Knbshn
 
I tried this one. After day 3 my brain emigrated, there were so many variables. One or two guys off sick for a few days would throw it out completely. Maybe they were much tougher then and never had illnesses???????????????? MTF
 
They would have had holidays and weekends off. There also might have been problems with machines or shortages that would have shut the line down, strikes, plant closings due to low sales, second or third shifts, production speed-ups due to improved processes, etc.

Just use your numbers to estimate the date of manufacture and then move it forward if necessary to the next day that you are sure was a working day. That"s the best you will be able to do without access to the serial number logs (which may no longer exist).
 
If you took the 365 days in a year, backed out 104 days for weekends and probably another 10-15 for holidays and other lost production days you would probably come close using 245 production days per year. I don't know if they had many non production days due to retooling back then.

I figured out production dates for my F series using this method and I think I'm within a few days. I was reading the new F sereis book and there were production changes that matched up with my calculations. Both of my tractors were made almost exactly one year apart on most likely my brothers birthday in early April.
 
Knbshn: I'll throw another kink in your reasoning. Quite often more the one model was assembled on the same line. For example I can see H and M using same line, very likely they went alternating months or weeks.
 
This is a link to the WI Historical Society. They are continually updating, so try some different things, and with difficulty, you can probably at least tell the month of assembly, maybe closer. I have not studied it much, so can't be of much help.
Production dates
 
I had an older neighbor that built the green machines in Waterloo in that time period and you also had to take account of the days missed because of layoffs due to seasonal sales.
 
Labor problems shut the factories down on occasion. There were also time periods where one model was shut down for long periods. You didn't mention what models you have so, no specifics. Go to the WHS site as suggested and you can get the month for many tractors. That will be closer to correct than your method applied across a whole year.
 
Thanks everybody for the replies AND the added info. I'll check out the website and hope to come real close on my tractors' "Birthdays"!

(If my wife finds out I want to celebrate those birthdays I guess I'd better not ever forget hers).

Knbshn
40 B, 45 A, 48 C, 48 H, 50 SAI, 52 Cub
 

Is that the same link that IIRC Guy Fay posted a while back that showed scans of the monthly production numbers?

That was incredibly cool. I found out my Super A and Super H were both made in December 1953 :)
 
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