...it was 1997. Not all that long ago unless you happen to be in the 4th grade - then, it was a lifetime ago. But for the rest of us, think Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House, Clinton as President, tornados and floods devastate much of the Midwest, Princess Diana is killed in a car crash and as if that's not bad enough, Mother Teresa passes on at age 87. On the bright side, no one has ever heard of Al Qaeda and All One Media releases their first video, Discover the World of Antique Tractors under the old "Machines Of Iron" banner.

Originally located on Olive Avenue in Burbank, California, All One Media was born in the back room of West Coast Post, a state-of-the-art television post-production facility serving Southern California producers of Entertainment, Educational and Technical programs. Seeing first hand, the incredible lack of family-oriented programing, Dave Muehsam along with two partners, created All One Media with the idea of producing a series of special interest videos centered around classic and vintage vehicles, equipment, and machinery of all sorts. As evidenced by RED! Vintage Fire Engines and Vintage Cycle Journal, the initial aim was far and wide, covering not only farm equipment, but fire-fighting apparatus, motorcycles and steam and diesel (electric) locomotives. A year passes and the two partners take off. One took the trains in pursuit of the Railfan, the other took a job with benefits, and Dave got bit by the old-iron bug and can't seem to shake it, or doesn't want to.

Dave's first tractor project was a '41 Farmall H that he bought for $300 and thought was a pretty good deal. Two years and $1200 later it runs great and is starting to look presentable. Well, now he's decided he wants to move East. At this point, he's got too much invested in "Ol' Red" to sell it and the restoration has become a labor of love. So he hires a trucker for $800 to get it from California to Pennsylvania. But this trucker, he's got a flatbed and Dave doesn't have a loading dock, so he hires a crane to lift the tractor onto the truck. There's an old saying that goes 'What gets loaded, must get unloaded.' So there's another crane hired at the other end. By now it seems, if Dave had invested the same money in Google, he could afford to buy half a dozen old tractors already gussied up.

So today, Iron Classics from All One Media has comfortably relocated from Southern California to a 170 year-old stone barn in rural Chester County, Pennsylvania. Dave uses that old Farmall that cost three times what it's worth, to keep the weeds under control and to move all the old trees that fall down, up to the wood shed for processing. Mushrooms are the crop of choice in these parts. We've settled in nicely now, and when Dave's son Sam was 5 years old, he could tell the difference between an Oliver and a John Deere with his eyes closed just by listening to them. RFD-TV is asking when the next video will be ready, so Dave stays cooped-up in the attic, trying to fit the last 3-day tractor event into a 2-hour video. Good luck. In the end, we hope you like watching them as much as we like making them.

“Awesome, terrific, fabulous... I really don't know how to describe the video of Rough and Tumble's Threshermen's Reunion.”
- Jacob Merriwether, Rough and Tumble Engineers Historical Association

“I enjoy your videos of old farm machinery immensely.”
- Stan Sipe, Mount Gilead, Ohio

“Keep on making those films about old-time farming - very, very good.”
- Joseph Luks, Auburn, Massachusetts