TOY TRACTORS: COLLECTION TAKES NOSTALGIC LOOK AT LIFE ON THE FARM IN MINIATURE

A one-sixteenth scale John Deere 8640, at rear, a John Deere 4650, left, and a one-forty-second scale John Deer A.

Telker has about 2,000 toy tractors, plows and other farming implements in various scales.

Mike Telker is a 41-year-old maintenance engineer at Lewis Bakeries in Sikeston. But ask him about his farm-toy collection, and he's a 12-year-old boy growing up on the family farm north of Charleston.

Drive by his house in Charleston, and you'll notice the green-and-yellow tractor -- his dad was a John Deere man -- that is his mailbox.

Go inside, and you'll see large wood cabinets stuffed with one-sixteenth-scale tractors, hay rakes, discs, gravity wagons, threshing machines, plows, planters, bushhogs, cultivators, corn shellers, hay balers.

Ask him about his farm-toy collection, and you'll hear the hobby's history -- about how Fred Ertl Sr. began making miniature farm equipment when the foundry where he worked in Iowa closed during the Depression; about how Eska began selling pedal tractors in five-and-dimes in the late 1940s; about how Ertl bought Eska in the early 1960s and made Dyersville, Iowa, the "farm toy capital of the world" -- and he'll tell the story with the energy and interest of a Shakespearean actor.

Then he'll take you to the backyard, where a large shed is filled with his passion -- pedal tractors. You'll see fifty years of tractors: John Deeres, Olivers, Allis-Chalmerses, Farmall-McCormicks, Cases, Fords and Cub Cadets.

Ask him about his farm-toy collection, and his eyes light up like a boy's on Christmas. But don't expect to leave soon -- there's a lot of enthusiasm to relate, a lot to get you hooked on, too.

Twelve years ago Telker saw an ad in a newspaper for a farm-toy show in St. Louis. He went. He bought. He was hooked. Telker bought a pedal tractor and a one-sixteenth scale toy that day.

He now has more than 2,000 scale toys -- almost every John Deere toy ever made -- and 85 pedal tractors. Only 90 to 100 pedal tractors exist. "Every time I go to a show or an auction, I'm looking for a pedal tractor -- even though I can't ride 'em myself," he says. "I'm just buying 'em for the collecting and their rarity.

"A lot of people might think, `What is a grown man doing with a bunch of pedal tractors?' It's the fun of doing it. It's the fun of buying one and restoring it and then displaying it. And a lot of times it has turned out to be a good conversation piece," Telker said.

As far as he knows, he has the largest farm-toy collection in southeast Missouri. He didn't want to put a value on his playthings, but he did say, "I know of other collections that have sold at auctions for $75,000 that were similar to mine."

His most valuable piece is a 1949 John Deere A, worth about $6,000. It's also his oldest, older than his Graphic Reproductions 1954 Ford 900, older than his favorite -- a 1958 John Deere 620. "It's got more of the open engine in it, and I just liked the way it looked," he says.

In the mid 1970s the hobby took off, Telker said. Then five or six years ago the toys began gaining significant value. Now a John Deere Coffin Block A pedal tractor -- of which only three exist -- is worth about $20,000.

There are price guides, the Truman and Zarse Farm Toy Enyclopedia, Toy Farmer magazine and restoration how-to videos. There are farm-toy shows -- about 35 dealers from a 150-mile radius will gather for Telker's Fourth Annual Mississippi County Farm Toy Show the first weekend in August.

There were shows in Sikeston and Cape Girardeau last year, also. So while the avocation has lost some of its innocence, Telker said collectors are "trying to keep it a pure, clean hobby." And he has a vested interest -- he's in it for the long haul.

"I'd rather do something," he said, "that I think would be interesting than go out and blow my money in a casino. I'll probably do this till the day I die."