The John Deere mystique has made an impression on a large enough segment of the American population that they can provide toys for sale based on name brand alone. In order for this to be successful a brand must have a reputation that stands above its peers. In John Deere’s case it is a brand that has been around for many years. In fact it has been around for many generations and is an icon within the American culture. So many generations of young boys have grown up and still see the respect that the John Deere brand name has that they are now in the position of passing that respect on to their children by buying John Deere toy tractors for their kids to play with. For toys such as Hess gasoline tanker trucks this would be a collector’s item around Christmas when the latest version of a series of collector toys becomes available in a limited edition. With John Deere the story is a little different. In this case it is not an annual event but rather an on-going event in that the brand name is always considered to be in demand, and purchasing a John Deere toy is considered not only the American thing to do but also an investment in the heritage of our country. Passing that tradition along is no small thing to those who believe in similar values.
There is no shortage of items available for purchase. There are so many tractors and various farm equipments available for purchase that the difficulty is not in finding something to buy but rather to determine what style and scale would be appropriate. There are toys available for very young children that are made out of wood and consist of basic replicas that are not necessarily accurate but are close enough that they represent the brand in color and style. A youngster around the ages of two to five would not be aware of the accuracy of the toy but would find pleasure in playing with it anyway. This is where the parent is the prime target for the sale in that they would be buying it for the child, but the satisfaction that it is a John Deere would be in their mind only. To the child it would make no difference. However as the child grows older, they might build on this initial stage by recognizing a real John Deere in the field, if they should see one, and make a connection between the real thing and their toy. Then if they still have an attraction to the brand name, their parents would certainly be aware of it and later on provide them with a ‘next generation’ set of tractors that would be more appropriate in that they would be to scale and be exact replicas of the real John Deere tractor. Of course it would not be too much of an exaggeration to expect that such a child growing up would then pass on this love of tractors to his children later in his life.
There are many scales available for the youngster of today. There are tractors that are electric and are large enough for a child to hop in and use it as a riding toy to get around. Smaller units may be 1/16 scale and those tractors and all their associated John Deere farm equipment accessories make great play toys in sand boxes and dirt piles. Collector editions run in scale all the way down to 1/87 scale and while these are not as accurate in detail as ones that are larger, they make great collectors gifts in that they do not take up as much room to display and are usually in a more acceptable price range.
A collection such as this would be something that could not only be passed on from generation to generation, but also improved as new farm equipment is modeled into toys and can be included in a collection that not only has the heritage of the past but also represents the latest developments that technology has to offer.