Antique and Vintage Farm Tools

Whether it's a sickle or a hay hook, a set of tractor wrenches or a corn sheller, farm tools evoke the sweat and satisfaction that comes with a honest day's work. While some aficionados of vintage farm tools collect based on brands such as Black Beauty, Fordson, DeLaval, Winchester, Stillson, Myers, and American Standard, other seek out pieces for their patinas of rust reds and weather-beaten grays. Broadly speaking, there are three basic categories of farm tools—those that are designed to help produce to the products of a farm, those that keep farm machinery running, and those that help farmhands lift heavy loads. Within the first category are vintage tools design to tend to the needs of farm animals. These including wooden milking stools, cast-iron sheep shears, and hoof picks for horses. Other tools are made for work in support of plants, whether its a pair of long-handled pruning shears, a potato planter, a corn knife, corn-husking gloves, corn shellers, or a weathered wheelbarrow, which, depending on its condition, may have a future as a flower box. Tools designed to service machines include all manner of wrenches, from open-end wrenches to adjustable wrenches to monkey or pipe wrenches, which are also adjustable. There are cast-iron tools designed to repair chains, as well as tools that use a length of chain to grip whatever needs to be turned or moved into a desired position. Related hand tools include fence-stretchers, spokeshaves, bucksaws, and every size and shape of shovel imaginable, from post-hole diggers to flat wide shovels designed to clean animal waste from barns. As for those lifting aids, they run the gamut from screw jacks, which are often collected for their decorative appeal, to hay hooks and cant hooks, which are designed to give a user leverage when turning a log. Pulleys, of course, among among the most sought after farm tools, whether they are made from wood with brass fittings or cast iron. And to crown a collection of farm tools, consider a weather-beaten farm sign, advertising seed or perhaps equipment made by the likes of Farmall or John Deere.