DeKALB, Ill. — Farm toys may not be a necessity of life, but three local collectors still buy and sell them on a regular basis.

Kirkland residents Vernon Johnson and Marvin Hawbecker and Genoa resident Roger Watson discussed their farm toy collections during a brown-bag luncheon on Feb. 22, sponsored by the DeKalb Area Agricultural Heritage Assoc. (DAAHA).

All three men started collecting seriously as adults because “after the kids grow up and leave, you see the hobby is still a good one,” Watson said.

Johnson has some of the toys he played with a boy. “I took good care of my toys,” he said.

With trucks, tractors and a variety of other machinery pieces covering two long tables, he brought about one-quarter of his collection. He has restored some of his older pieces, learning the tricks of the trade as he went. A number of his toys came from Nylint, a Rockford, Ill., manufacturer and Carter, originally manufactured in Rockford, as well.

Johnson said he sells toys occasionally but, like the rest of the economy, the value of collectible farm toys has fallen. “The condition of the toy really determines the value,” he explained.

Hawbecker brought a small portion of his collection. He said he started collecting when his children were a little younger, as he could afford small toys. “We never had toys like this when we were kids, did we?” Hawbecker asked his audience.

“You meet a lot of nice people in this hobby,” he added. He and Johnson have attended the annual farm toy show and sale in Sublette, Ill., together several times.

Watson’s collection contains more horses and, at least in the pieces he displayed, were of a much larger scale. Among the more interesting pieces was a pair of papier-mache horses with a wheel on the bottom of each hoof.

Watson said he bought the horses at an antique shop in Germany in 1963.

Many of his pieces include horses and less-mechanized farm equipment. “A lot of these toys were made during the Depression when they didn’t make metal toys. They were wood or plastic and the wooden ones got torn up pretty quick,” Watson said.

For that reason, he said original toys are difficult to find. “I’m pretty tickled with what I’ve got,” he said.

Watson also displayed wagons made by RK in Freeport, Ill., and Vindex in Belvidere, adding that neither company was in business for long.

A member of the audience noted Vindex was part of the National Sewing Machine Co., which made the small toys with metal it had left over.

Emcee for the event, Emerson Wells, asked Watson’s wife, JoAnn, if he displays his collection or if it’s packed away. “The attic is full, the basement is full, the garage is full and he sneaks things in that I never see,” she responded, to laughter from the audience.

The next DAAHA brown-bag lunch is scheduled for noon March 7 at the Ellwood House Visitor Center in DeKalb. The topic is “Oral History Project of the Illinois Agriculture Project.” A third lunch talk, titled “DEKALB – 100 Years Strong,” is scheduled for March 21.

For more details about DAAHA, visit www.daaha.org or call 815-756-8737.