[Farmall] Yuma auction

[Karl Olmstead]

Went, saw, but didn't conquer.  I attended the first part of the Dome Valley 
Museum auction in Yuma that ran Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  As advertised, 
there were well over a thousand tractors.  In general, folks agreed that it 
was the worst-run auction that they had ever seen.  Single auction stage, so 
they had to sell about 1300 items a day.  Friday's auction ran from 9 a.m. 
until 1:30 a.m. on Saturday.  768 items of "collectibles" went first, much 
to the disgust of us tractor guys.  I attended virtually none of that 
action, but did see a doll house go for $900.  Most of the toys went for 
about $100 apiece.

The tractors finally started at 6:30 p.m.  I was amazed/dismayed at the 
prices.  A really rough F-12 on round spokes (with both cast hubs obviously 
cracked) that I felt was worth maybe $200 went for $700.  It looked like 
rough 10-20s were going for around $1700.  John Deeres weren't going as high 
as I expected.  The best bargains I saw were small crossmotor Case tractors, 
at around $3500.  I expected them to be $10K, based on rarity.  Titans ran 
$10K to $20K.  A very late F-20 (with turning brakes), stuck, no tag, went 
for $900.

There were two tractors I really wanted.  One was an oddball.  It was a late 
O-12, OS 3049, with all the O-14 features.. long shifter, tail seat, foot 
brakes down low, long steering column.  It had one brake pedal on each side. 
It also had some decent non-IHC citrus fenders.  I don't know if it was an 
IHC experiment, or somebody who REALLY wanted an O-14 and converted a late 
O-12.  Nonrunning, cracked water jacket.

I intended to offer $3500 for it, but dropped it to $3000 when I realized it 
had an O-12 tag.  It sold for $3900.

The other tractor was a real O-14, s/n 3899.  It looked to have been 
restored ten or twenty years ago.  Cracked water jacket.  Good conventional 
fenders.  Both brake pedals were on the right side (down low, as they need 
to be on a tailseat O-14).  I decided to go whole hog and offered $5K for 
it, which is more than I have ever paid for an antique tractor.  It sold for 
$7500.  I left at that point, around 9:30 p.m.  I had been at the auction 
thirteen and a half hours by then.

My fallback position was to buy a good forklift.  I figured that everybody 
would be so focussed on tractors that the JCB 930 forklifts might go cheap. 
Wrong.  A rough one went for $11K.  Another, the best looking, which had a 
starter ring gear problem, went for $13K, and the one I wanted (and was 
willing to spend $7500 for) went for $15K.  The two better ones were 1998 
vintage, and ran very nicely.  I'll admit that they are $20K forklifts, but 
it never hurts to hope....

So I left, at one day and one hour into the three day auction.  There were a 
couple of O-12s left, but I knew they'd go for more than I wanted to pay. 
Over at the parts yard, where they held the Sunday auction were a couple of 
pairs of tiptoe steel wheels for F-12 and a duckbill F-20, but it was a 
mess, as was the parts yard.  There were two wide front F-14s, but the front 
axles were heavily welded, and one of the tractors was parked behind at 
least 100 feet of junk.  I guessed that it would take at least a week to dig 
it out.  The parts yard and building were chaotic; junk and dirt piled 
everywhere, trees growing up through tractors, and nowhere for the auction 
crowd to stand around while items were being sold.

Loading up was going to be a major problem.  Must of the museum was soft 
blow sand, and people were getting stuck left and right, even with empty 
trucks and trailers.  The auctioneer had arranged for one extendable boom 
forklift with 10K max capacity, but it would have taken him a week or two to 
load the 1000 plus tractors.  And that was at the museum; there was 
virtually no room to maneuver or move stuff out of the way at the parts 
yard.

So I got home a day early.  1000 miles, 700 of that with my 28 foot flatbed 
behind the truck.  I hauled a tractor over to a friend's near Quartzsite, AZ 
and left the trailer there.  When I came back, I loaded up a rough F-14 that 
he had given me a couple of years earlier and hauled it home, so I didn't 
come home empty handed.

Now I know.  I've attended my obligatory big antique tractor auction, and if 
I never attend another, that'll be just fine.  Too many people with way too 
much money.  There were folks from 47 states and 18 countries present.  The 
auction building had 2000 seats, and they probably filled 1500 of them.  The 
best part of the weekend was feeling like a teenager again; the average age 
of the attendees had to be 70 or better.

I did come to one realization, though.  For prices like they were getting at 
Yuma, I'd happily sell every tractor I own and use the ample proceeds to buy 
one or two REALLY nice tractors.  And maybe retire a year or so earlier, 
too.

-Karl