The manual man

Attendees at the Tri-State Antique Engine and Tractor Show are often in the market for tractors, engines and corresponding parts.

They may also be looking for information on which parts to use and how to attach them.

That’s where “paper dealers” like Tim Meister come in.

Meister, 67, offers tractor manuals and sales literature for visitors to the Tri-State Antique Engine and Tractor Show, which continues through Saturday at Jay County Fairgrounds. He’s been a regular attendee for about 27 years.

Meister’s collection includes some 20,000 original manuals, brochures, encyclopedias and other literature regarding tractors and trucks. He’s got a little of every brand, including books for Ford, Case, John Deere and International models. His oldest material dates back to 1890 — they’re John Deere pocket ledgers — with the majority of his items dating between the 1920s and to the early ’70s.

Meister’s stock includes material from as early as 1890. Most of his collection, though, dates from original printing in the 1920s through early ’70s. Pictured above are several rows of manuals, including those for John Deere models. (The Commercial Review/Bailey Cline)

 

A resident of Bucyrus, Ohio, he and his wife, Nancy, bring a wide selection of his stock to the show every year.

“We handle original (books),” said Meister. “Some stuff is rare and you can’t find it anymore.”

He noted their two-story house is chock full of the collection his father Jim started nearly 30 years ago.

Tim Meister took over the business when his father’s health began to decline.  (Jim Meister died nearly six years ago after suffering a heart attack at a show in West Liberty, Ohio. He had been at the Portland show less than a week before his death.)

“Anybody that knew my dad would say, you know, he passed away doing what he loved to do,” Tim Meister said.

He’s often asked why someone should purchase a manual when they could search up the information online. He admitted technology has changed the market over the years, but said there’s still a need for paper or hard-copy manuals.

Part of it comes down to completing collections.

“They want to have a book to match their tractor or piece of equipment,” said Meister.

It may be they’re replacing an old copy.

“They’ll come up and say, ‘Mice chewed my book up. I need a new book because I need to know how to set my combine,’” he said. “They want it for the information so they have it to pass down with the tractor.”

And sometimes, folks just prefer to have a physical copy they can hold in their hands.

“We hear that, you know, ‘I can Google it and get it,’” he said. “One guy told me yesterday, ‘I can get the CD disk, but I’d rather have the pages that I can read it and see it, get it out of the file cabinet and look at it.’”

Meister’s usual spot hasn’t moved far since he and his father started coming to the show about 27 years ago. It’s located across from the Gamma Nu ice cream stand between the Farmer’s Building and the bingo stand at the fairgrounds. (It used to sit in the spot the ice cream stand now occupies.)

Meister farmed 450 acres for nearly 50 years of his life. After “semi-retiring” about two years ago, he’s cut his farming down to about 150 acres. His father was also a farmer and an auctioneer for the Gebhardt and Meister auction company before he started buying and selling tractor manuals and related literature as a pastime.

A tractor enthusiast, Meister also has six Case tractors ranging from between 1939 and 1948. Although they’re still in working condition, they’re mostly used for display.

Meister's manuals and other stock isn’t available online. While he could profit more from a wider audience on the web, he prefers in-person sales, giving him a reason to visit with friends at the shows he and his father attended for decades.

“That’s more than 50%, 60% of it, is coming and seeing old friendships and relationships that my dad started and I got to know the people, and now their sons,” he said.