[Ford-ferguson] Spam> FYI: Antique Tractors: A Real Investment Vehicle

[Mike Sloane]

[My wife's reaction to this article was "good, let's get rid of some of 
those old tractors you have lying around". My reaction is that it is 
going to make it tough for guys like me who don't have big bucks to 
spend on old tractors. MS]

Antique Tractors: A Real Investment Vehicle

by Joyce Russell
<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95016730&sc=emaf&sc=emaf>

Morning Edition, September 25, 2008 · Skittish about the stock market 
and credit crisis? There's another place to park your money: collectible 
tractors. The sector is growing like never before — it has even 
attracted European investors.

Before a recent auction on a farm near Shelby, Iowa, dozens of old 
tractors were lined up in a field, ready for the auction block. Some 
were shiny and restored, others were long unfamiliar with paint. And 
some of them started right up.

They had names both familiar — John Deere and Case — and obscure, like 
Oliver and Silver King.

"We started collecting tractors in 1974, and been collecting mostly ever 
since," said Doreen Wonder, 79. "I love tractors. I'm really a tractor nut."

Wonder and her husband, both retired farmers, recently started seeing 
some unfamiliar faces at their tractor collectors club: doctors, lawyers 
and bankers. The sleepy world of collecting tractors, it seemed, was 
becoming a high-stakes investment game.

Some of the tractors the couple bought for four figures early on now 
bring six figures at auction, they said.

The auction brought a good turnout. Auctioneer Lonnie Nixon says that as 
more and more tractor aficionados got in over the years, prices 
gradually went up, as they would for any collectors' item not being made 
any more.

But, he said, prices jumped dramatically in recent years. The reason? 
Foreign investors.

"The Europeans, because of the exchange rate, if they spend $100,000 
that's the same as spending $60,000," Nixon said.

"Any time you have the big old tractors, the Europeans will be there. 
They buy them and ship them back to Europe."

And, Nixon explained, as the rarer models leave the country, demand 
grows for the ones that remain.

Ken Eder, a 55-year-old railroad contractor who lives in Carthage, N.C., 
travels from auction to auction to buy tractors.

One of the new breed of investors, Eder started sinking dollars into old 
tractors five years ago. He thinks of it as his retirement plan and has 
seen prices sometimes double in a year. He also collects coins and 
motorcycles.

"But tractors seem to be about the strongest market right now as far as 
collection items," Eder said. "You can put your money into it, and you 
can't lose."

Part of the fun, he says, is going to the shows and meeting people. But 
you can also drive the tractor around, show it off to your friends — 
something, he said, that's more difficult with a standard stock portfolio.

In Iowa, the Wonders have boosted their retirement income with a few 
strategic sales. And the boom has reached a related sector of the 
economy: Tractor restorers report that business is brisk.