Vendors offer a wide variety of items for sale at event

RANTOUL, Ill. — Ranging from antique farm equipment parts and tools to farm toys and crafts, visitors to the Half Century of Progress will have the opportunity to shop for a wide variety of items.

“We will probably have vendors from 20 different states,” said Barry Maury, owner of B&B Farm Toys. “There should be something for everybody.”

Maury expects eight or nine toy vendors at the show this year.

“I’ll be set up there and I carry all brands of toys,” he said.

The toy collector started at a young age.

“As I got older, I would buy a toy and I already had one at home so I decided I would sell a few,” he explained. “So, that’s what started my business 37 years ago.”

Maury collects all brands of farm toys.

“Right now John Deere is my favorite because that’s what we farm with,” said the farmer who grows corn and soybeans on his farm near St. Joseph in central Illinois.

The collector is not sure how many toys are in his collection.

“A bunch of them are the 1/64 scale, so those add up pretty quick,” he said. “As far as the other ones, I probably have about 1,000.”

During the wintertime, Maury typically travels to about 15 farm toy shows, mostly in Illinois, as well as a couple in Iowa and one in Indiana.

“I sell toys from $10 and up, but just like the rest of the economy, the toys have really gone up in the last three years,” Maury said.

“I think a lot of collectors get hooked on anything new,” he said. “But there’s a lot of collectors that just collect the older stuff.”

Special Half Century of Progress toy tractors will be available for purchase at the B&B Farm Toys booth.

“There will be Oliver, IH and Minneapolis tractors for sale,” Maury said. “The 1/64 scale tractors will cost $30 each.”