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Manufacturers Index - Jacob Price
History
Last Modified: Jul 4 2014 1:11PM by joelr4
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      The Jacob Price company was located in Racine, Wisconsin. The "field locomotive" that was sold by Jacob Price was patented on January 4th, 1890. Engines were equipped with vertical boilers.

      The Jacob Price steam traction engine was built by J.I. Case Co. of Racine, Wisconsin.

      In 1889 the J. I. Case Threshing Machine Company made a steam traction engine for an inventor named Price which was intended to pull a gang of plows. Price bought plow bottoms of the plaintiff and attached the same to a triangular frame which was itself attached to the engine. This was experimental work, and continued for some years; the defendant advancing Price money to carry on his attempt to produce a successful tractor. In 1893 Price had become indebted to the T. M. Company in the sum of $11,000, and, being unable to pay, he transferred to the T. M. Company all his rights in the engine, plow, and patterns both finished and unfinished. The T. M. Company manufactured some of the Price plowing outfits (purchasing the plow bottoms from the plaintiff), and sold a few outfits, but the number of sales does not appear. They were advertised for two years as the "Jacob Price steam plowing outfit." In 1894 the T. M. Company issued a catalogue devoted to the "Jacob Price field locomotive manufactured at the works of J. I. Case T. M. Company, Racine, for Jacob Price." In 1893 the Plow Works also advertised this outfit for sale as the "Jacob Price field locomotive and steam plow." It does not appear how many of these outfits were sold by either party, but the machine was unsuccessful, and the manufacture and sale seems to have ceased in 1897, having resulted in a loss to the T. M. Company. During all this time the defendant made no plows, but purchased such as it needed to complete the Jacob Price outfits from the plaintiff. In 1900 it assembled a heavy tractor engine plow made up entirely of parts conveyed to it by Price in 1893, and used it in connection with a new type of tractor engines at several exhibitions in the West. On the engine and gang of plows the name "Case" appeared in large letters, together with the defendant's corporate name and the trade-mark. The entire outfit was sold two years later to a farmer near Winnipeg. In 1902 the defendant constructed an attachment in the shape of a triangular platform on wheels to be attached to the rear of their engine or tractor as a connecting link between the tractor and the plows, and having on the lower beam hooks for the purpose of attaching plow beams thereto. This attachment carried a coal bunker and water tank, and was made and sold by the defendant from 1902 to the present time. It had stenciled on the side in large letters the word " Case," as well as the corporate name of the T. M. Company. It was sold without plows, and was constructed so that gang plows of any standard make could be attached to it, and during the years from 1902 to 1912, 373 of these attachments were sold by the T. M. Company. Still it made no plows.

      In 1909 the T. M. Company built and experimented with an engine gang plow with individual beams, but sold none, and abandoned the experiment. Nothing further was done by the defendant till the spring of 1910, when it manufactured what was called a "steam-lift engine gang plow," which embodied a new invention, and of which it sold during 1910 and 1911, 63 outfits, of which 27 were returned as unsatisfactory, and the sale practically ceased in 1911. In these outfits the plows themselves appear to have been manufactured by or expressly for the T. M. Company, and were marked with the word "Case" in large letters, and were so advertised. The advertising of these outfits as the "Case" plowing outfits in trade journals began in January, 1911. Up to that time (with the exception of the plows advertised with the Jacob Price plowing machinery) the T. M. Company had never advertised any plows in trade journals, nor had it made any plows; in fact, it advertised in its catalogue up to 1909 that it did not manufacture or furnish plows.

Information Sources:

  • Norbeck, Jack, Encyclopedia of American Steam Traction Engines, Crestline Publishing Inc, Glen Ellyn, Illinois, pg. 213.
  • American Steam Engine Builders: 1800-1900 by Kenneth L. Cope, 2006 page 195
  • The Trade-Mark Reporter, V6, 1916 pages 118-119
  • The Steam Tractor Encyclopedia by John F. Spalding & Robert T. Rhode, 2011 page 279