Beginner’s Luck

By Staff
Published on April 1, 2004
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This 2 HP Sandwich engine was a lucky find by the son of a first-time antique engine owner. It originally worked in a cranberry orchard.
This 2 HP Sandwich engine was a lucky find by the son of a first-time antique engine owner. It originally worked in a cranberry orchard.
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Showing serial no. A242999, this remarkably original Sandwich
(except for the muffler and fuel tank) dates to 1924. It only took
two hours to get it back in running condition. We should all be so
lucky!

A few years ago, I got permission to hunt on the property of a
gentleman who is sort of a hermit. After a couple years passed by,
I began repairing things for him around his cranberry bogs. Out of
curiosity, my dad, who was just getting interested in old engines,
asked me to inquire if he had any hit-and-miss engines.

On my next visit, I relayed my father’s question, and the
man replied that he did indeed have an engine. I asked if he wanted
to sell it, and he said, ‘no.’ I didn’t give the engine
much thought after that, but about six months later the gentleman
asked me if my dad still wanted an engine. I said,
‘yes.’

I told him I’d be back later with someone to help me put it
in my truck, but he insisted that if I wanted it, I had to take
right then. About an hour later I had the engine in my truck, and I
asked him how much he wanted for it. He didn’t want money.
Instead, he asked me if I could get him a few Massachusetts license
plates from 1900 to 1920, since that’s what he collects.

Before I left, he told me the engine had always been kept inside
and was originally used to run the shakers and the conveyor belts
for the cranberry operation, and that it hadn’t been started in
years. It’s a Sandwich 2 HP with a tulip-top hopper, and it
appears to have all the original pin striping and labeling on it.
The gentleman told me the only thing not original to the engine was
the gas tank and the muffler.

I drove straight to my dad’s house, walked in and told him,
‘you owe me big time.’ He asked what I meant, and I told
him I had a one-lunger in my truck for him. His eyes lit up, and he
rushed right out to see it. My father was like a little kid at
Christmas time. My mom said he couldn’t sleep that night,
because he kept thinking of the engine.

Since this Sandwich came home with me my father – with a little
urging from our friend Charlie Hatch – has joined a local old-iron
club, the Cranberry Flywheelers. Charlie got the engine running in
about two hours, and now my dad is enjoying the 2 HP Sandwich. All
of the activity around the engine has even got me a little
interested in it, as well!

Contact engine enthusiast Kent Blethen at: P. O. Box 605,
Manomet, MA 02345.

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