Minneapolis Moline Model E - Corn Sheller

By Jim Engelsman and Jack Paulsen

Around the last week of April, I received an auction brochure from Miller Auctions out of Brush, Colorado. After looking at this sale bill for a few minutes and reading through the items, I saw there were three old corn shellers to be auctioned off. The next day I talked to Jack Paulsen and said I wouldn’t mind watching them sell, since that sort of thing seems to attract a lot of attention at Pumpkin Fest. Immediately Jack said if we could purchase one that he would partner with me. Since I had already made plans to go to Kansas, the weekend of the auction to celebrate my mother’s 100th birthday, Jack said he would go to the auction and watch the best one sell.

Jack and I went to look at the shellers the week before and decided and that if we could fit one of them in our budget, we would try to buy it. We decided the Minneapolis Moline was the only one of the three that could be restored, so Jack would see what it would sell for. I also saw a 1946 John Deere A I was interested in buying and gave Jack a price I would be willing to pay.

On Sunday afternoon, after returning home from Kansas, I talked to Jack and he said that I was now half owner of Minneapolis Moline model E corn sheller and full owner of another tractor. Brandon, Jack and myself went to get our newly purchased equipment home. We both decided we really needed to spend some time cleaning, adjusting chains , open gears and other things so we could have it ready to use for Pumpkin Fest. The only flat belt had sat out long enough to rot aport and the two tires had also rotted away, so we decided that would be a good place to start working. Because Steve Logan and I do many things together and he only lives a couple blocks away from me, I decided to ask him if he knew where I could maybe get an old belt or maybe even a newer one,. Steve said he would look, because he might just have one. Sure enough he did, and I had a couple old tires, so now we are ready to move along.

Jack and I have put some serious hours working on this thing, but probably not a total of eight to ten hours so far and feel we are ready to run the machine. All parts seem to be in place, but won’t know if it will work real well, at least at first, because it has some rust on the drum, sleeves, grain pan and augers and maybe a few other spots. It is a fun machine without being GREEN.