It's May and spring has finally come to WNY. Most of us are thinking that we can put away our snow blowers and start sharpening the mower blades.  I was finally able to mow my lawn for the first time just last week.

            To coincide with the topic of my mowing, I'm going to focus this month on John Deere haying equipment.  The first piece of John Deere machinery Ertl made was a round baler.  These are metal with a plastic pick up head.  Also included is a round bale. Below is the prototype  picture of the 1/64 round baler that appeared as a new release in the 1983 Ertl/John Deere  toy catalog.  This is a plastic resin prototype, notice it has a detailed belt like the 1/16 model.

            We first started seeing these in the mid 80's and it immediately had its first variation. The John Deere green color was mistakenly run in a much brighter shade of green as shown in the picture.

I haven't found any variations in the brighter green models.  There are however many variations supplied to the collector in the correct John Deere green models.  The first and most obvious variation to look for is a hole in the rear of the baler.  This has most likely been added to assist in the painting process.  A hook would be inserted into the hole and then it would be hung to dry.

            The next variations might be considered as Ertl's next generation of John Deere round balers produced by Ertl.  The green steel pin has been replaced with a rivet.  The difference between a steel pin and a rivet is that a steel pin has the same head on both ends.  The ends have been spun over to form a lip.  A rivet has a head on only one end.  In the picture you can also notice a decal change.  There is a small John Deere on the rivet model and the large John Deere with the steel pin.  This new small John Deere decal had a short life.  In this next series Ertl was finally able to get rid of the generic John Deere decals and start adding model numbers.  Three models have been produced to date.  A 535, 566, and a 567.  All of these models came with the rivet in the door and the hole in the rear of the baler.  The 535 was the first round baler to be produced with a model number and is the only one with a second variation. The first 535 baler came with a yellow pick up head that was carried over from the older series.  It was later changed to a green pick up head.

The 566 and 567 models both came with a green pick up head.  The casting has not changed throughout its life.  Only the above variations and the John Deere decals have changed.  Notice the changing John Deere.

Oops- Here's one that quality control missed.

If you're like me and you prefer watching bales fly through the air as they try to hit the bale wagon this next model is the one for you.   In the mid 1990's Ertl introduced the 338 square baler.  This is also metal with a green plastic pickup head.  A second model, the 348 was introduced a few years later.  The two models are almost identical.  The 338 model has a noticeably larger model number than the number on the 348. There are decals on both the front and the back of the model. 

       The other variation is by the hitch.  The older 338 model has a gusset on the hitch.  If you look closely at the picture you can see where the feature was removed from the mold.  The hitch was also narrowed.  Both the removal of the gusset and the narrowing of the hitch were most likely done because they interfered with a feature on a tractor and did not allow the baler to be hitched to it.

TTT May 2003 Page 2

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