It was a typical Wednesday afternoon when my wife came home from work and said that one of the women she rides the bus with was having a yard sale on Friday and Saturday.  The woman said she had several Kewpie dolls she was selling.  Rosie mentioned that some friends of ours collected those and she would let them know.  The woman said if we wanted we could stop in on Thursday when they were setting up and take a look.  I called my buddy Doug and told him about the dolls and he said he and his wife would stop in and see if there were any he needed for his collection.

When we got there on Thursday Rosie and our friends checked out the stuff laid out for the sale.  I wandered over and looked at a Cub Cadet the owner had sitting in his yard.  The guy came over tried to sell it to me.  I told him I wanted a “Big” Cub.  He pointed to a house up the road and said if I looked just right at the back of the garage behind that house as we left I could see a cub that had been sitting for a while.

As we left his house I did as he said and saw a yellow and white Cub peeking out of the weeds.  Nobody appeared to be home so we drove on.  I went past the house several days and never found anybody around.  Finally on the following Monday I found the owner home and stopped in. The guy was willing to sell, but he didn't know what to ask for it and I wasn't sure what to give.

He said it came with his house when he moved in and he said it ran fine. He bought a new John Deere rider mower the year before and parked the Cub and let it sit. He said it sat for a couple of years and he never tried to start it again.  I was missing the battery and looked like it was going to take some wiring work to get it going so I knew I would be buying a non runner.  I told him I would think about it and let him know later in the week.

I did an internet search on Cubs and found Farmallcub.com. I did a little searching on the site and used the info I found to determine that the serial number, 120992, indicated it is a 1950. I read a few posts and checked ebay to see what the going rate was for a Cub.  Armed with what I felt was enough info I headed back to the guy’s house.

My wife was a little concerned so I told her I wouldn’t give more than $600.00 for it.  When I went back to the Cub the owner said he wanted $600.00 for it, Wow, I thought this guy was reading my mind when he said his asking price and it matched my max price.  I took a chance and told him that if he could get it running I would give him that for it otherwise, as a non-runner, I figured it was worth about $400.00.  We both knew it wasn’t going to run that day and it would take a little effort to get it running.  After a little hagglin’ I ended up giving him $500.00 for my first Cub.

I visited Farmallcub.com several times after that to gather more info.   I read as much as I could and found that my Cub should have been red and that a previous owner may have painted it later.  In the meantime I found other Cubs on Ebay and saw more posted for sale on the forum and figured I got it at a decent price.

I saw where a lot of the guys named their Cubs.  I had no idea what name to give it or if I would even do that.  Then I happened to look at an old cast iron griddle we picked up at another yard sale the same weekend we got the Cub.  The name on the back was “Griswold”.  Since some people have also called me that because of my tendency to put up thousands of Christmas lights I figured it was an omen so the name stuck.

I spent some time trying to get the Cub running but was having no luck.  The previous owner had rewired it and had wires everywhere.  I had gotten busy with a few other things so the Cub had to wait.  I saw on the forum there was a Cubfest coming up in Michigan in October and they were looking for a few project Cubs to work on.  I figured “Why not”, it would be a great time to meet some of the guys and get some help too.

By then we had bought another Cub, so we loaded Griswold and Chanel on the trailer and made our way north. The guys there were great and very helpful.  After removing a tone of unneeded wires and installing a new switch we installed new points and plugs.  That is all it took for Griswold to come to life.  He sounded pretty good and I believe he will be a great addition to the scenery around the barnyard.

Anybody recognize that mower.  There's no tag on it so I have no idea what it is.