ONE OF A KIND
When Howard Fischer brought home a gas engine two years ago, it turned out to be the most unique of the “over 1,000” gas engines the 87-year-old from Kewascum, Wisconsin, had dealt with in the past 72 years. The 1913 2-1/2hp Hippe-Steiner gas engine he found is to date the only one known to exist. “I don’t know for sure that that’s true, but I’ve never seen or heard of another one,” Howard says. After the decades Howard’s spent actively trading and collecting engines, that statement carries some weight.
A little history
Howard grew up on a farm near Mequon, Wisconsin, and his uncle Ed started him off in old iron in 1949, giving him a Model T Ford. “After that, I just got interested in old engines,” Howard says.
The next step was a 2-1/2hp Alamo engine his father used on an orchard sprayer, which Howard remembers seeing back in 1947, when he was 15. “My father’s brother Bill moved to a farm where there was a circa-1922 1-1/2hp Simplicity engine, and they were just going to leave that one
