Jacco W. van den Broek calls himself a collector of 1/32nd-scale farm models. So dedicated was he that last November he traveled across the ocean with his German farm layout in a suitcase that was a few inches too big to fit into the overhead bin.

That meant Jacco had to check his precious farm layout and wait to see just what kind of shape it was in once he got to the States. “I saw it come down the line,” he said of the award-winning display that arrived on the baggage carousel along with other suitcases.

All appeared to be well with this layout after its air voyage. The judges at the National Farm Toy Show allowed for the smaller size because of traveling constraints; the layout measured in at what may be the smallest ever, at 16-by-24-inches. Jacco won second place in the Adult Small Scale display contest and took a trophy back home from Dyersville, Iowa.

Jacco hails from Zeven-Aspe, Lower Saxony, Germany which he said is near Stuttgart. He collects 1/32nd-scale farm toys, but since these would be too large for his suitcase, he had to use the smaller 1/64th for what he described as “an all-European display.” Although the toys were 1/64th-scale, the layout itself was 1/87th.

Unlike many collectors, Jacco said he does not have any farm roots. “I work for a company that makes pipe supports for chemicals,” he explained.

The first time he came to the National Farm Toy Show was in 2006. The farm layout aspect of this international show appealed to him: “Although I collect 1/32nd toys and 1/64th is not my scale, I wanted to do something European.”

When he decided to do this, it was completed in a hurry because, “When I looked at the calendar I saw I had four weeks to build a display.”

The layout included a cornfield. In Germany, he said they call their harvest equipment foragers; he used a Claas forage harvester, a JD 7000 tractor and a Mercedes Benz tractor.

He also had a Schluter tractor which he added “are very popular in Germany and is not often seen outside of Germany.”

In his corn scene, two men are hard at work trying to unplug the forage harvester. (This may be a European display, but it’s not a scene unfamiliar to American farmers.) Corn production in Germany has expanded over the past decade.

“Corn in Germany has doubled the last five years or so,” Jacco said. “Much of our corn goes to gas installations to produce electricity. There are windmills all over and a lot of solar panels.

“The energy policy is to get us out of nuclear energy and coal; they are doing everything to create alternative energy.”

An artistic touch he added to his farm scene was a few apple trees with an artist working beneath one tree. The scene also included a garden tractor with a 10-20- horsepower – smaller, Jacco said, is common on European farms.

The 2012 National Farm Toy Show will be the third weekend in November, so mark your calendars early for this big event.

Readers with questions or comments for Cindy Ladage may write to her in care of this publication.