[AT] TD-14 worth

[Richard Walker]

Sadly, your TD-14 may be worth more for scrap than any potential user 
would pay for it, especially since it seems to have some repair issues.  
A story that is unfortunately repeating itself many times lately, where 
old tractors are heading to China rather than to a collector or 
part-time user, all because the seller gets more money that way.

Highest price is when you haul the iron to a scrap yard yourself.  Here 
in CA, I've heard delivered scrap iron prices are $300 a ton or higher 
now.  You've got 9 to 11 tons of iron in your TD-14 and blade, and even 
if the scrapper picks it up (lower price paid of course), it should be 
worth $200 a ton or higher.

Like you, I am also suspicious of the "church" angle.  Probably a few 
phone calls to scrap yards would nail down a ballpark price for the 
dozer.  Then you would have a baseline to go up from if you want to 
market it as a usable dozer.

At the Brooks show in Oregon this year, a large auction benefiting the 
on-site Antique Caterpillar Museum was held.  30 or 40 old crawlers were 
in the auction and after the dust settled, a scrapper had bought some of 
the tractors, to the dismay of many crawler collectors in the crowd, who 
couldn't realistically match prices with the current scrap market.

-  Richard


> Gentlemen,
>        I had someone come by my house today asking about my bulldozer. It's a
> TD-14 with a cable operated blade on it. They (2 of them) indicated it was
> for their church. Well, I'm not too sure about that; I suspect it's actually
> a scrapper or two looking for large blocks of iron to pick up and haul off.
> Personally, I'm not out much if I let it go but I'd like to get scrap price
> for it. Any idea what something like this would bring? I can get it to run
> though it's got a rod knocking and one turning clutch is kinda bad. Tracks
> are in decent shape (don't know how to measure percentage) but the bearings
> are out on several rollers. In short, it's not going to be a front line
> piece of gear and I know my wife would love to have a chunk of the yard
> back...
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Ken in AZ