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Lee Roebuck's David Brown Literature Collection


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Decided to get some new folders for my collection of brochures and in doing so took a few photographs of the early brochures I have.

First up the wartime economy brochure of 1942

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1943 VAK 1 brochure which was published a month before the bullet hole grilles were fitted. Secondly a vak1 potato spinner brochure of which I imagine there were other "implelement" brochures of this style but to date I have only ever seen this one.

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On to the cropmasters...

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...and something to put behind.

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Some crawlers

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Field Force range of brochures

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900 and implematic era implement brochures

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Ploughs

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My collection spans the breadth of the David Brown line from the VAK1 to the 1694 and everything in between. My plan is to create a website to host all of my brochures and to also host donated scans to create an online resource...so watch this space!

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fantastic brochures, a website dedicated to one brand literature is certainly a great way to promote and showcase your collection. It is also a way to share the wealth of information you have gathered throughout the years.

as Ronald says (he does have one of the best websites about one brand dedicated literature) it is a hellish of a job to scan everything and set up a website.

I also am working on a website about my collection and it is a huge amount of work (been working on it for over 18 months already and still have 20% of my brochure collection and 35% of my modelcollection to go...)

the best of luck with your website, i will definately be following your proceeds!

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Having quite a vast collection of David Brown printed ephemora myself I can imagine what the project is going to be like. The early single page leaflets are quite straight forward as they are in A4 format and easily scanned whereas the later ones are just a smidgin larger and more difficult unless you have access to an A3 or larger scanner. Then there are the bi-fold, tri-fold, quatra-fold and multi page brochures not to mention the 3 foot wall charts and posters that were produced. I wish you good luck Lee in creating a web based archive which I will look forward to, as I'm sure many others will as there is a very large following for D.B. related stuff, not only here in the UK but, seeing that 95% of all D.B. agricultural and indutrial manufactured products were exported to 92 different Countries, the rest of the World too.

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Great looking brochures! Certainly a topic to follow. Good luck with creating a website for your brochures, I know how much work it is ;)

It is quite the daunting task! You've done a great job with your site.

fantastic brochures, a website dedicated to one brand literature is certainly a great way to promote and showcase your collection. It is also a way to share the wealth of information you have gathered throughout the years.

as Ronald says (he does have one of the best websites about one brand dedicated literature) it is a hellish of a job to scan everything and set up a website.

I also am working on a website about my collection and it is a huge amount of work (been working on it for over 18 months already and still have 20% of my brochure collection and 35% of my modelcollection to go...)

the best of luck with your website, i will definately be following your proceeds!

18 months!....going to give myself 6 months to get the majority of the sales literature scanned in and then scan in repair/parts manuals too. The plan also is to get a computer set up in the workshop and have the manuals on there too hopefully eliminating anymore oily finger prints in the books.

Having quite a vast collection of David Brown printed ephemora myself I can imagine what the project is going to be like. The early single page leaflets are quite straight forward as they are in A4 format and easily scanned whereas the later ones are just a smidgin larger and more difficult unless you have access to an A3 or larger scanner. Then there are the bi-fold, tri-fold, quatra-fold and multi page brochures not to mention the 3 foot wall charts and posters that were produced. I wish you good luck Lee in creating a web based archive which I will look forward to, as I'm sure many others will as there is a very large following for D.B. related stuff, not only here in the UK but, seeing that 95% of all D.B. agricultural and indutrial manufactured products were exported to 92 different Countries, the rest of the World too.

Hi TIm, yes i know what you mean about the varying sizes! The worst are the bottle opener era brochures which are a4 but have a fold out flap inside, these read ok when you have the brochure in hand but become a little disjointed when scanned in. I think the larger posters and wall diagrams will have to be photographed. With your "vast" collection Tim I might need your help in plugging the gaps ;)

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I have some of the early single sheet brochures and Cropmaster ones but only very few as yet of the 25 and 30 series tractors, the bulk of mine cover the 900 onwards right up to the end of tractor production.

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You're right there Niels, quite a value tied up in these brochures/leaflets. I don't see why as the majority of other make brochures and leaflets generally make reasonable or little money but when it comes to the David Brown stuff then big money changes hands, Interest in collecting the brochures seem to be a lot greater than in the actual tractors.

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Superb collectiion Lee... and hats off to you for undertaking such a mamoth task. I've always had the dream of doing the same with my MF collection... but to date, I've not mustered the energy to learn how to do so.

I'll be watching this topic very closely and thanks for sharing mate

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  • Some lovely brochures there Lee, very nice to see the original early literature. Thank you for sharing them. The six-furrow plough booklet is a very rare item, I have it myself, but have never seen another. I don't have the early VAK1 brochure or the one for the Prairie Cropmaster, that is very, very nice and rare.

The single sheet implement leaflets are nice too. You have a very good collection. Lets see some more of them!

Regards

Rory

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You're right there Niels, quite a value tied up in these brochures/leaflets. I don't see why as the majority of other make brochures and leaflets generally make reasonable or little money but when it comes to the David Brown stuff then big money changes hands, Interest in collecting the brochures seem to be a lot greater than in the actual tractors.

Compared to Ford or MF there will be less brochures about I guess, so value goes up. Also in the UK David Brown is a popular make. A just as rare, or rarer, Fendt or Deutz brochure might make little money in the UK but a lot more in Germany for example.

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Superb collectiion Lee... and hats off to you for undertaking such a mamoth task. I've always had the dream of doing the same with my MF collection... but to date, I've not mustered the energy to learn how to do so.

I'll be watching this topic very closely and thanks for sharing mate

Cheers Mark, i must say that at least there are a finite number of DB brochures to collect. I wouldnt know where to start collecting/cataloguing with the Massey stuff as they are still producing brochures!

  • Some lovely brochures there Lee, very nice to see the original early literature. Thank you for sharing them. The six-furrow plough booklet is a very rare item, I have it myself, but have never seen another. I don't have the early VAK1 brochure or the one for the Prairie Cropmaster, that is very, very nice and rare.

The single sheet implement leaflets are nice too. You have a very good collection. Lets see some more of them!

Regards

Rory

Hi Rory, I struck lucky with the six furrow brochure and i've only seen another and that is with the DB tractor club...so theres at least three! I shall upload some more brochures as I get them scanned in.
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A couple more early brochures i've got scanned in.

A David Brown Thresherman brochure, only ever seen this example and I believe they only made 180 tractors.

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As Tim (powerrabbit) mentioned some brochures fall out of a A4 size and this is one of those brochures. It folds out to be near A1 size outlining the implements and tractors models available at the time.

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Cropmaster launch brochure - A4 size which folds out, this brochure puzzles me as it has no publication number or date and doesnt sit with any graphic styles of the time.

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That Cropmaster brochure Lee dates to 1947. The tractor was released in October of that year and the brochure would have been sent to the dealers and outlets a few months before the release of the tractor. This dating can also be applied to all the other brochures as well, at about the time the tractors and machinery was on the production line. The Royal Smithfield Show was the showcase for David Brown agricultural products held every December when all their stuff was officially released. When the 90 series tractors were released in 1980 they were then showcased at Monaco. The Implematic and Selectamatic era brochures are mostly all date coded, just have to know how to read it, later brochures just had a publication number.

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Nice collection Lee

cheers chap

Great collection there Lee - would like to see some of the later ones too.

cheers, I'm going to go in chronological order so the 94 series are 40 years of literature away bit I'll get there!
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A few (this scanning lark takes longer than expected!) more selected brochures of the much maligned 900.

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The next brochure came from a collection which belonged to a Polish truck manufacturer (hence the scribble and stamp) and had been part of their market research at the time.

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And the jewel of my 900 collection a very rare 900 rowcrop brochure.

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Thanks for looking

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The rowcrop 900 leaflet is indeed rare Lee as this variant never went into comercial production. It was to be for the North American market predominantly but those prototypes that went out to work on evaluation proved to be too heavy in the front and easily toppled over on gradients and in certain ground conditions so it was subsaquently dropped. I believe that there were major issues with the steering as well.

Edited by powerrabbit
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The rowcrop 900 leaflet is indeed rare Lee as this variant never went into comercial production. It was to be for the North American market predominantly but those prototypes that went out to work on evaluation proved to be too heavy in the front and easily toppled over on gradients and in certain ground conditions so it was subsaquently dropped. I believe that there were major issues with the steering as well.

I learn more and more from your posts thanks.

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