[AT] High Old Iron Prices in Wed News Article

Dean Vinson dean at vinsonfarm.net
Wed Apr 9 18:32:13 PDT 2008


hank at millerfarm.com wrote:

> The value of some oddball anything often has 
> little bearing on the more common models that 
> are almost identical.

True, although I think a lot of that must be due to the collector market, as
opposed to farmers, folks that like old rural stuff, suburban mini-ranchers,
etc.  Sometimes there's overlap between those markets, in terms of what's
desirable, but not always.

Assuming I had to keep the tractor and not sell it, I wouldn't trade my
completely unremarkable Farmall M for a brass-tag open-fanshaft high-crop
Minneapolis Moline Comfortractor.  I just like old tractors that remind me
of rural life and my family history.  The oddball models are interesting to
look at once in a while at a show, but they don't have much emotional
meaning (and therefore dollar value) for me.

Serious collectors of course wouldn't see anything in my M that catches
their fancy, I imagine.

Some rare things are worth more because they're better.  I like to think the
late-model 4020 diesels with the side-console hydraulic controls and
Powershift transmission are more valuable than their similar-looking
brethren because they're more useful to farmers, not just because they're
rare.

I admired that John Deere 330 that sold a few times on eBay recently, serial
#1 and in virtually perfect original condition, and hope it ends up in a
museum somewhere.  Being the very first one, and also in such remarkable
condition, okay, I can see why it brought a ton of money.

The ones I don't quite get are the typical high-crops and orchard models and
such that go for five or ten times what the row-crop version would bring.  I
guess there are enough collectors to keep the market price high for those
less-common (but otherwise unremarkable) models?  Is there still a lot of
demand from practical farmers for those machines?  If you're a suburban
mini-rancher with money to spend, would you pay more for an orchard 3020
than a row-crop utility version?

Not that I completely object to the concept of suburban mini-ranchers with
money, by the way.  I almost qualify for that label myself, except for the
money part, and except for the mini-ranch part...

Dean Vinson
Dayton, Ohio
www.vinsonfarm.net






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