Large Ag Memorabilia Collection Donated To Idaho Museum

Large Ag Memorabilia Collection Donated To Idaho Museum Retired Idaho farmer Pete Rathbone says he woke up one morning in 2025 to a small voice telling him it was time to move on from adding to his collection of nearly 6,000 wrenches and other agricultural memorabilia. “I’ve had these displayed at my R-Lucky Star farm for years, and if I’d sell ‘em, I’d have to box ‘em all up and take ‘em to the Midwest, because that’s where all the collectors are,” he says. “That would’ve been a huge process, so instead I decided to give them all to the Owyhee County Historical Museum.” Rathbone’s collection was graciously accepted, as was his check to fund a 30-ft. by 60-ft. building addition to display it. Museum Director Eriks Garsvo says the collection is truly amazing and will be a major attraction, especially given its organization.  “The wrenches are displayed just like he had them at his farm, alphabetically by the company that made and issued them,” Garsvo says. “Pete had help from his son, neighbors and a Boy Scout troop to hang the wrenches on hooks on the pegboard walls.” Over 40 years of collecting, Rathbone gathered nearly 6,000 wrenches from more than 1,000 companies. “Having them in alphabetical order by company was the easiest way to keep track of what I had and what they were used for,” Rathbone says. “Any company that made farm equipment, steam engines, small engines, cream separators, household mechanical items, or horse-drawn equipment issued wrenches. They’re all different sizes, shapes and configurations.” Many of them were issued by companies no longer in business, while others are from well-known names such as Deere, Case, International Harvester and Aermotor. An antique picker helped him acquire wrenches from Italy, England, Germany and the Netherlands. Rathbone says he found many of his wrenches while traveling with his wife to antique stores and swap meets.  “I was president of the sugar beet association for 16 years, and we’d drive to winter meetings in warmer states. We’d go dot-to-dot, visiting cast-iron seat collectors and antique stores,” Rathbone says. “On one trip, we came home with 375 wrenches in the back of our Oldsmobile.” Rathbone says it’s almost impossible to place a value on the collection, noting that some extremely rare wrenches might sell for several thousand dollars at auction. A Nebraska collector was offered $30,000 for a TR590 Deere cutout like one Rathbone has, issued for a Dain All-Wheel-Drive tractor. Fewer than a dozen were made, and few are known to exist. The collector promptly declined the offer. Rathbone also gave the museum his collection of cast-iron machinery seats, sugar and potato sacks, cast-iron grain seeder side plates, a giant cast-iron eagle, hand corn planters, small corn shellers, garden-style push plows, and several metal signs. A 2 by 4 barn frame built inside the addition holds his display of wheeled hay carriers. Rathbone used his collecting hobby to launch another venture. Over 15 years, he researched and published four books on old-time farm implement companies and the wrenches they issued. The books match part numbers to companies and include a price guide based on sales at public auctions. Newer editions of the books incorporate corrections submitted and verified by other collectors. Stories about Rathbone’s wrench collection and the books he’s written appear in FARM SHOW Vol. 40, No. 4, and in Best of FARM SHOW Vol. 17 and Vol. 18. “When people ask why I started collecting, I tell them that as a kid growing up in Los Angeles, I was always interested in farming. I wrote to 40 agricultural colleges and asked for their bulletins. I wrote to John Deere several times, and they sent me literature along with color posters that had metal grommets on the corners. One of them was huge and showed how grain flowed through a self-propelled 55 combine. Those somehow got thrown away. I sure wish I had them now.” Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, P.T. Rathbone, 6767 Pershall Rd., Marsing, Idaho 83639 (ph 208-896-4478; lsr@rluckystarranch.com) or Owyhee County Historical Museum, 17085 Basey St., Murphy, Idaho 83650 (ph 208-495-2319; director@owyheemuseum.org; www.owyheemuseum.org).

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