Boy, did those seats look uncomfortable. There were six of those old cast-iron tractor seats, concaved with cutouts that pained me just by looking at them.
They had been set up in the parking lot recently at a new auction house I was visiting. I couldn?t imagine them parked up to a basement bar or dining room pass-through with someone actually sitting comfortably in them. Not even a cushion could make those feel good. It is safe to say these antique tractor seats are a little different from the kind of thing you might see inside a modern tractor from a farming equipment website such as fastline.
This was the first time I?d seen bar stools made from old tractor seats. They had been cleaned up, painted and installed on a metal pedestal with a carved three-point base and a circular foot rest. I was intrigued as soon as I saw them, wondering if they were authentic or not.
The name of the maker was embossed on the front: Hamilton & Baker. Sacramento. San Francisco. In the center was the word “Champion.”
I Googled to see if I could find something interesting about something so utilitarian. I did, at a site called farmcollector.com and the Cast Iron Seat Collectors Association (doesn?t every collectible have one?).
I have this image in my head of a farmer trudging through the soil pushing some farm plow behind a mule or horse. That?s what it was like before seats made farming easier and more efficient, according to a 2004 article on the farmcollector.com site. The first seats were made of wood in the 1850s, followed by seats with some cast-iron and then seats that were solid cast iron by the 1860s. The holes were later added for ventilation and comfort.
With these new seats, farmers could sit on their butts on their implements (which included corn planters, hay rakes, harrows, plows, mowing machines), guide their horses and work their land. Salesmen even custom-fitted the seats for each farmer, until manufacturers began producing them from steel in the early 1900s, according to the article. The collectors association figured that there were about 2,200 different seats made.
One collector noted that although they are commonly called tractor seats, they were rarely made for tractors. This blog has some old farm equipment with the seats.
The patterns on the seats seemed to be as varied as the manufacturers, as shown in these photos of seats for sale. The companies also put their names on their seats to advertise their business. Champion, the name on the seats at auction, apparently are pretty common and are not particularly sought-after. Corn planter seats, though, are apparently hard to find.
The collectors association, started in 1973 and with members all over the world, warned against reproductions. One member profiled in a 2004 article on the farmcollector.com website both repairs and repaints them (there is some debate over whether to paint them or leave them rusted). He left the backs as they were to show that they were authentic, he said. He and others said that there are reproductions out there, and they offered suggestions on what took for and what to avoid.
I found a number of websites selling seats for a variety of prices. Even Restoration Hardware offered its own reproduction of a bar stool for $345.
In one forum, I found someone who had the bar stools and described them as “very comfy.” I didn?t try out the ones at auction nor was I around when they sold. But in their condition, I?m sure they were a popular bid.
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