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Gentlemen, Sometime back, April 16 in fact, Andrew (Triumph66) sent me a PM over on the GTTalk forums. There was a 1962 Bolens 600 listed on eBay that he was interested in, and he wanted to know if I would assist him in getting it shipped to him if he bought it. One reason for his request was that it had been posted on the GTTalk forums and I told folks that I was VERY close to where it was located and that I could pick up and store it if anyone was interested. I replied that I would be more than glad to help, and Andrew got VERY interested. Since he was so interested, I decided to go take a look at it in person as it was only 20 miles from me. I took a good look at it and took it for a spin around the barn yard, and was VERY impressed with it. I asked the seller if he knew anything about the history of the tractor and he explained that he worked in a scrap yard, and that someone had brought it in to be scrapped Since he is a bit knowledgeable he set it off to the side so that they could sell it rather than scrapping it Why on earth someone would do that is beyond me. As you will see in the following pics, it's one of the nicest original tractors that you will ever see. It's absolutely beautiful It was listed with a starting bit of $300.00 and for one reason or another no one bid on it and Andrew STOLE it for the minimum bid. PM's started flowing fast and furious, and after wired bank funds finally arrived (that was a story in itself), I contacted the seller and made arrangements to pick it up. So today I hooked up the trailer and went to fetch the mighty Bolens. One thing that Andrew mentioned was maybe I could take a pic of the Bolens with an 'iconic' American building in the back round, I hope I succeeded :D I did stop on the way home to take a pic or two of some "iconic' bovines as well. You don't see them often in this part of the country, but if you ever watched the old Westerns, you should be able to figure out what they are :D So without further ado, the pics, starting from hooked up and ready to go, to back home with it one the trailer. I will be taking more pics as we go along and most likely a video or two as well.

I uploaded some pictures under Alain's Pictures in the gallery, they are of a stash of Bolens, Wisconsin, Tecumseh, and Kohler manuals I was given today. Two brochures for 1977 Bolens tractors and attachments, I received 5 copies of each of those.

Ian and I payed a visit to Alan and John today to help with a bit of advice on the collection we had a superb day but very tiring it was, we have helped him log and age the items that they will be selling but the best bit is there lots of attachments and other goodies. I must stress that as moderators we did not buy any tractors or attachments , keep your eyes peeled for Alan's forthcoming posts, this was one of the best days I've had in years .thanks Alan and john

That really is a great 600 and looks even better in these pictures than the ones the seller had. Even better, one of the pictures is a great help for me to see the details of a bracket that is missing on my 600. The assistance Dave is providing to Andrew is unbelievable and inspiring. I believe Andrew is also using shipping information provided by Neil and me to sort that side. For me this is just another example of the goodwill and support that forum members on here are willing to provide. This is a great place to be!! Iain

Finally something other than red!

Believe me Iain, we have plenty of those kind of people here as well. They are mostly 'city folk' and pretty much wrapped up in themselves. Out in the small towns and rural areas, people are more neighborly and will help each other just because "that's what you do". They do small things like removing the snow from the elderly widow's drive, to the big things like harvesting a farmer's crops when he has an illness or injury.

Great looking machine, like others have mentioned it's good that we've got friends across the pond willing to help out, if there's a little room left in that crate chuck a plough in there for my wheel horse im just kidding, I see a wonderful green 600 has just popped up on the bay

They are identical to the set of ride-a-matic wheel weights I am but they are also identical the set of weights that come with my Cub, which still have the original yellow paint. Is it possible that they are a generic weight that was fitted to a number of tractors at the time. Iain

Going out of your way (even slightly) to help someone is surprisingly uncommon in this country. A request is often met by sucking through teeth and a list of reasons why that is not possible. I can live with that, what is annoying is the people who say yes when they mean no and they are really hoping you won't remember you asked. As we say in these parts, your a good sort. Iain

We haven't gotten too deep into that. It appears that Andrew will be making all of the arrangements over there for the actual shipping. I will be prepping/crating/getting it ready for shipment. If it ships from the Port of Cleveland which is only 40-50 miles from me, I'll be able to deliver it to the port which will save some money. If it has to go to New York, that's 500 miles from here and it will have to be shipped from here to there.

One of the best parts of this story is that you were prepared to help a fellow collector manage to purchase a lovely tractor thousands of miles away & that you are prepared ship it for him. Documenting its shipping with photos is also really cool . For those that are considering shipping from USA,How easy do you think the shipping process is ?

What a fab story, look forward to the rest... Andrew was lucky to get a steal and even luckier to be helped by you across the pond! That's what I love about our site, no barriers to help and support. Great pics too

Mighty Bolens. Its so small you could put it in a suitcase on the plane Lovely little thing for Andrew Look forward to seeing it one day

Oh by the way, when I was taking the cattle pics, I had my little camera at max zoom, and with the glare on the LCD screen it was a bit hard to see just what I was taking a picture of. Here are a couple that I didn't include above :D