We have a 1969ish Simplicity Yeoman 726. It was my father's. He bought it from the original owner around 1985 for $600.00. It came with a 26" three bladed mower deck, a snow blade, a snow thrower and a rear weight. I used it from 1995 until 2001, when we bought the Power Trac. It has a 3sp tranny. Reverse is kind of weird, in that is is geared the same as 3rd! So you can go real fast backwards. It has an electric starter, but no charging system. So I just pull start it when the battery dies... Starts right up. I can even pull start it while sitting in the seat.
It originally had a 6HP Briggs, which died after 29 years of service(remember that commercial with the old guy, "Change the oil every year... I never had my oil changed!"). So they wedged in a 8.5HP. I still use it once or twice a year, just for fun. It does a great job mowing with a most beautiful cut, but takes forever becasue of the 26" deck. Nice thing was it could fit through a gate, and to install the mower deck, I just lift the tractor front end up and walk it over the deck and set it down.
I took the kids for a hay ride with it yesterday. We have one of those Rubbermaid carts, so we drove 75 feet back to the garden, piled in our harvest of 12 small pumpkins and 31 watermellons(each about the size of a softball) and I drove them all over the yard at a very slow speed. They had a blast and so did I. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif