Well, funds is tight, so I am not progressing much, but I did overcome a major hurdle last night.
The serial number tag is damaged on this tractor. (See the first post in this thread.) It is very difficult to read the three center digits in the serial number. That's sort of a serious issue on a white demo! So last night, I took the entire seat support off, and brought it in the house where I could look at it closely in good light.
For reasons only known to the fine folks at IH, they were using a sorry method for stamping their serial number tags in 1950. My '48 Super A and '49 Cub have nice, neat, DEEP stamped numbers. In 1950 (and I don't know when they started or when they switched back; my '54 Super A-1 has the nice deep stamped numbers again) they were using stamping that looked like this:
(Thanks to 61cub51 this is the tag on his white demo Cub)
If you "look at it too hard," the numbers get damaged. I think somebody must've been riding around with a heavy tool or something under their feet, and it banged against tag. Also, it's only holding by two rivets, so it's had some abuse. Anyway, I could for sure read two of the three damaged numbers in good light, but the third digit in the number was partly obliterated. I tried holding a light at all different angles, rubbing it with a pencil, laying a piece of paper over it and rubbing it, rubbing it with a q-tip, rubbing it with a pencil eraser (that did the best job of cleaning it), using 2-3 different flashlights, etc. I could see enough of the top of the digit to tell it was either a 2 or a 3. I had the production list for Louisville from the IH Archives, and narrowed it down to sometime in February production. So I went dragging outside last night about 10PM to check casting codes. Most of them were towards the end of February, with the newest one being Feb. 26 of '50. So, that helped me narrow it down to a 3.
Sort of jumping the gun, but now I have a decision to make. Do I leave the plate as-is when I restore it, or get a reproduction. I don't believe in reproductions, but in this case it may be warranted. I think I have some time to decide...
I'll try to post some more pics but there's no doubt what this tractor is, as if there was before! It's just as white as it can be on the back side of the seat support, where it met the transmission case....
More later
Al