History of the Super 88 on the cover photo's

Posted by Mark on 11th Jul 2024

THE HISTORY OF THIS SUPER 88

Serial # 49700-801 was bought by Raymond Korves on 9/17/1957 from Monroe Service in Columbia IL.

This was Raymond’s big farm tractor at the time. It was used to plow, disc, and plant. In later years when Victor and Robert were in the Hay business, it was used for raking and baling. Around 1988 a Farmhand F-11 loader with a Farmhand grabber was put on the tractor and was used to stack 10 small hay bales at a time in the buildings 17 feet tall. Then to load the bales onto trucks to haul the hay to the customers.

In 2006, Victor, Robert, and Mark quit the hay business and the tractor was retired. In 2018 the loader was sold off of the tractor and we decided to restore this tractor. Tyler at this time was in High School and decided to use this as a 4-H and FFA Project as well.

On November 1 2018, the tractor drove into the shop and was completely dismantled. The tractor was completely rebuilt from the ground up. Replacing most every bearing, seal, gasket ect. The tractor was completely cleaned, sandblasted and painted in pieces and reassembled. In the spring/summer of 2019 the tractor was back together and all that was left was the body work.

Then Covid hit, Things got crazy and didn’t get to do much on it. In November of 2020 all of us got Covid, and unfortunately Robert passed away from Covid and the tractor sat.

After Tyler graduated from Diesel Tech School in May of 2023 and decided to come back on the farm to work full time, we finally got the time to finish this tractor.

This tractor took a little over 5 long years to finish and a lot of hard work, but after all of the dust has settled. This is one tractor that we will cherish forever. After looking back, almost 67 years later, this is a 4 generation family tractor still sitting on the same farm that it was delivered to back in 1957. It was restored by 3 of the 4 generations. This tractor has the most meaning to all of us and will never leave the farm. I am sure that Raymond and Robert both, are looking down at this tractor and smiling.