Combines Which older combineIJ

You must be bored trying to do it yourself rather than hiring a custom harvester.

I've ran 600 acres near Cedar Falls for years with a late 1460, 90% of the time by myself. It has been a highly reliable machine that is easy and simple to service. I only ran it on about 200 acres of corn this year (without a hitch) because I bought a 1680 from a fellow farmer to increase the number of bean acres I could cover in a day. The 1460, a 1063 cornhead, and a good 1020 20' bean head would be just about in your price range. The 1660 is a more comfortable machine, but one in your price range would most likely be a southern transplanted one that never saw a machine shed or a grease gun. The New Holland combine is a great machine but generally doesn't age as well as the Case rotor. Best of luck.

Dakota, It's been real quiet over on the cat page. Hasn't been a new post there for six days now. When are you going to tell us how those Cat combines ran for you this yearIJ As long as it is takeing you to get your report together, must have been some year. K.A.

What's wrong with somebody trying to harvest their own crop. I rather do it myself then higher a custome cutter. How come nobody is posting on the Cat page. Aren't there any owners of cat combines. Maybe we don't need that page anymore.

I bought an old 1480 this year, now I'm a believer. Never ran an I-H before and I really love it. I only use it for corn, have another old conventional combine for beans, so I can't report on that, but it does an excellent job on corn. In the 90's we ran a new Gleaner R52 and then a JD 9410 in partnership with a neighbor. He sold out and moved away. I couldn't afford one of those on my own, so unloaded it and took a few steps back. Anyway, the 1480 is 20 yrs old with over 4,000 hrs. Kind of faded and ugly in the daylight, but at night I feel just like I'm in a new one. Run an 8-30" corn head and my only complaint would be is that its a little light in the rear end, especially on hills, so that could be a concern for you West of Ia City. I run 750 acres, 425 corn and 325 soybeans. I have a MF 550 for the beans. Nice little bean machine, but have had a lot of trouble this year. I usually don't mind wrenching on a combine, but the 550 is a pain. Everything is compact and hard to get to. Thinking about dumping it and looking for a 1440_60 for beans. lot of them for under 10 grand on farm sales. I really like the flexibility of having 2 machines for the different crops. Paid less for the 1480 than my last JD cornhead, and the 550 was less than my last bean platform, so I don't have a lot of $$ wrapped up. If something bad happens....junk it and go look for another bargain. But for simplicity and reliability, I think you'd prefer the I-H axial flows over some of the other brands. cheers, gs