While on my quest to track down all of the tractors my grandfather once farmed with, I came across this very well-preserved original IH Farmall Super AV "Cultivision" - the quintessential vegetable tractor (hence the "V" designation), and a staple of New Jersey agriculture. I'm not sure why it took me so long to buy one of these, as I've wanted to add an AV or Super AV to my collection for a very long time. You can't really say you're from South Jersey if you've never used an offset Farmall tractor to cultivate tomatoes or peppers with. The Farmall AV/Super AV/140 Hi-Clear tractors were (and still are) the patriarch of many small family vegetable farms in southern New Jersey where I was born and raised, and they have a pretty strong history in my family as well. Even today, most New Jersey vegetable farms own at least one of these tractors for cultivating high-bedded crops, side-dressing fertilizer, pulling wagons, or mowing. Thousands of the Hi-Clear tractors were shipped to NJ back in the day and they proved very popular in the sandy soils - they shared most components with the A/B/C and their Super counterparts, and were very dependable and simple tractors for single-row farming. Even today, the large corporate (multi-million dollar) veggie farms in New Jersey are still using these tractors to maintain crop beds. I believe the majority of the AV-family of tractors were shipped to New Jersey, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, and California.
These tractors paid the bills for a lot of poor South Jersey farm families including my own, and for a lot of these families were a major improvement over horses. My great-grandfather's first tractor was a Farmall AV that he ordered (reluctantly) during the war shortages of the early 40's, and upon receiving the tractor, he quickly took a liking to it while phasing out the draft horses he had used prior. He wore out the first AV and replaced it with a Super AV in 1950 (which I have the title for), and my grandfather took a liking to them as well - so naturally he had to purchase a Super AV for his own farm around 1954. He cultivated with this tractor, the JD 520, and a pair of Allis Chalmers G's up until 1979 when the Super AV and one of the G's burned up in a barn fire mid-season. That same month, he bought an identical S-AV to replace it, and was back in business. He held on to this second Super AV until the early or mid 1990's when he sold it to another local vegetable farmer who used it until his death in 2022. From what I've been able to find, it was sent to auction and changed hands several times before ending up in Connecticut, so I am hopeful that I can contact the owner and buy that one back - that would be the fourth family tractor back in the collection.
To hold me off in the meantime, I picked up this Super AV from a local South Jersey tree farmer who is a family friend of ours and is also an IH collector. This tractor belonged to his cousins in another nearby town, and it spent most of its life on their farm until they sold out. The tractor still has its original patina which has been coated with a preservative, and it came with a full set of cultivators, one-bottom IH 193 plow, fiberglass fertilizer hoppers (for side-dressing), and an original IH umbrella holder (which I removed and sold to a friend). It sat for some time before I bought it, but always starts right up on the first crank (now thanks to a rebuilt starter). I've done some other small repairs to it including a cooling system flush, new valve cover gasket and valve lash adjustment, repaired some faulty wiring, and also replaced the homemade battery box and muffler with correct original-patina ones from a parts tractor. I think it's a great example of an original tractor and it has so much character. I think it represents my Italian family's history very well, and I imagine it will get a lot of interest being out in PA Dutch Country (at least until I can work out a trade deal for the family's Super AV in Connecticut). I'm liking this trend toward high-clearance "oddball" tractors as well - the collection will be seeing a lot more of them in the future.