Hello, Gary -The Sperry company has a complicated corporate history, which makes it a challenge to determine where corporate archives (which may include a record of product serial numbers manufactured by year) are located.- The Sperry company acquired the New Holland corporation in 1947. - The company name was changed to Sperry New Holland in 1973.- In 1985 Ford Motor Co. acquired Sperry New Holland. - Eventually, the corporate name was changed to Ford New Holland (and the Sperry name for construction and agricultural equipment was no longer used.) - In 1991, Ford sold its Ford New Holland unit to Fiat Geotech, creating N.H. (New Holland) Geotech. - Eventually, Ford, Fiat and other products were grouped under a neutral, globally-recognizable brand name: New Holland. - In 2017, New Holland changed its corporate name to CNH New Holland.Therefore, if your skid steer just has the brand name "Sperry" on it, it was PROBABLY manufactured prior to 1973. However, there is still a challenge regarding the location of the Sperry manufacturing records for its agricultural and construction equipment.Some New Holland corporate records covering 1902-1906 and 1971-1987 are held by the Lancaster County (Pennsylvania) Historical Society:
https://www.lancasterhistory.org/finding-aids/new-holland-records-1902-1906-1971-1987/Scroll down the web page cited above to see the telephone number and email address for LancasterHistory.org. You will need to contact the archivists there and find out the charge for researching the New Holland corporate records to determine if records of the manufacturing serial numbers have been retained. When you contact (I recommend speaking by phone) an archivist, I suggest you ask if he / she knows where archival records for Sperry (the unit which manufactured agricultural and construction equipment prior to the corporate name change to Sperry New Holland) may be kept. Serial number records prior to 1971 for Sperry agricultural and construction equipment may be held in one or more other archives (if good fortune had them deposited in an archives.)Note: At one time I worked as a corporate historian and archivist in the USA.Best wishes.
