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Collection, Preservation and Display of Old Lawn Mowers

This 'obsession' with old mowers?

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The obsession with my lawn bought me to the world of old mowers. To be honest I cant remember how I stumbled across vintage lawnmowers this summer when I joined here.

I think after reading on a Facebook group about reel mowers it got me into looking at reel or as we call them cylinder mowers. As I cut my lawn every 2 or 3 days in growing season I felt a push mower would be a more polite option for my neighbor's. So along came the Ajax, not enough to have 1, so I buy another to pull to pieces, see how it works and do a nut and bolt restoration. Then I find myself looking through vintage mowers for sale, parts for sale, booklets etc. Then i sore the print blocks and now would like one of those.

What is it with a simple piece of equipment that does nothing more than to serve a purpose other than to cut grass? Why do I have this fascination on the style of them, shape of the handles, even the 3 colour paint scheme on all of them and how good they look just sat where they are.

Have I lost the plot?

AUTO CERTES 1 Fri, 13/12/2019

I think its a few things regarding old lawnmowers. As you said Warpa it often starts with wanting a decent lawn which is no easy thing to achieve In itself but if you get it right the results are very satisfying and once you get to know about old mowers and that many are rare and hard to find in good condition then you get the 'hunt' aspect in trying to find them which particularly for men i think is always fun. Tinkering about with machinery in the garage is fun too and reading up on the different problems different mowers suffer from and how to fix them is interesting. Maybe people with a sense of history and that some things were made very well at particular times because of economic and cultural influences that will never happen again give old things a value that can't be replaced. So no you haven't lost the plot you've just got a new interest. Most people do incredibly boring unimaginative things with their time so welcome to the world of old mowers! 

 

 

Warpa Fri, 13/12/2019

Nice replies thank you. I suppose the mower does cover all aspects for a man boy, the push mowers while clever engineering are simple enough to tinker with. As I've got older (53 now) a lot of old things I find are superior quality unless you want to spend thousands on an item because materials were so much cheaper back in the day and people would want to see, touch and try before they buy. The same is with old hifi I like, manufacturers knew a customer would go into a shop with a record or tape and try out hifi and speakers and buy on the best sound.

Triumph66 Fri, 13/12/2019

It's a fascinating hobby and is relatively cheap to buy vintage push cylinder mowers which can be used to improve the health and appearance of your lawn. It's often the case that having one or two is not enough and the hunt to find another one is part of the fun. My problem is threefold. First: I have too many hobbies! Second: I have rapidly loosing room and storage space and, thirdly I have too many projects on the go which can be problematic. I guess it is a combination of hunting down an old mower and the thrill of collecting it and getting it back to the shed to give it a thorough clean to assess its condition and tracing the serial number so you can ascertain the date it was built is all part of the fun. Naturally, setting it up and using it to cut the grass is an added bonus.