[AT] Antique tractors that are too expensive

Sun Dec 22 10:20:25 PST 2019

I went to an auction to buy a grain truck.  It was a 73 IHC Loadstar 
with a 16ft Omaha bed and hoist and a shurco tarp.  I knew the truck 
would be in good shape.  It had been shedded and also waxed every year.  
It still had the original seat that looked new.  It had been converted 
to propane only so I thought I would get it fairly cheap.  there was an 
83 model equipped just the same that sold before.  I bid it up to $5000 
and quit.  I figured the older one would bring about $3000.  I ended up 
having to pay $5000 for the older one.  It gets 12mpg on Propane, starts 
easily and before summer I will have an unloading auger on it.  I have 4 
new mud tires to install on the back.  I paid too much for it, and I can 
never get that out of it unless I have a shill bidder at the auction, 
but by the time I sell it, it will be too old for anyone to really 
want.  The best part is I don't have to worry about getting to where I 
am going when I use it....
Cecil

On 12/22/2019 12:05 PM, deanvp wrote:
> We have all been there on both sides. It has been the same since the 
> creation. Sellers can ask whatever they so desire. IF and that is a 
> big IF they really want to sell, eventualy a mutually acceptable price 
> will be achieved.  I would like to say I have never bid too high at an 
> auction but that would be an outright lie. But most of the time I have 
> pretty good discipline. But it didn't take me very long to realize I 
> wasn't going to make money in the antique tractor hobby. So I now have 
> accepted that I am paying for some enjoyment of a hobby and some self 
> satisfaction of taking something that hasn't run in 20 to 30 years and 
> making it a functional again. I'm not into making trailer queens. All 
> of my tractors know and do real work. But, after 20 years I finally 
> have purchased a trailer queen. A 1935 JD B.  And I probably paid too 
> much for it. But I now have a full sized tractor to take to the local 
> shows in AZ in the winter. But, with all good plans, sometimes it 
> doesn't work out as planned. There are two major issues to deal with 
> here and that is where do I work on a tractor and where do I store all 
> year around. My original offer was made that I would pay a certain 
> amount on the condition that it could be stored and worked on where it 
> was for at least a year. This was accepted by the son of a very good 
> friend of mine here in AZ that passed away in November. He took my 
> Cashiers check to his mother, my deceased friends wife, and she took 
> the check but reneged on the agreement her son had made about storage. 
> I just didn't have the stomach for trying to enforce the original 
> agreement with a grieving widow. So now I am scrambling to arrange 
> storage at a reasonable cost that I had originally built into my 
> offer. In other words I am probably going to lose my ass. So you win 
> some and you lose some. I may have to sell it this winter to mimize my 
> losses.  I now have to do a new benefit vs cost assessment.
>
>
>
> Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy Tablet
>
> -------- Original message --------
> From: szabelski at wildblue.net
> Date: 12/22/19 8:20 AM (GMT-07:00)
> To: Antique Tractor Email Discussion Group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
> Subject: Re: [AT] Antique tractors that are too expensive
>
> If you’ve ever seen the show called Pawn Stars, you see people who 
> always want above top dollar for what they carry in, and get upset 
> when they are offered a fair price. This is even for things that they 
> got at a garage sale for $10, and are offered $300 dollars for. They 
> think that since they were told by the pawn shop owner the real value 
> is somewhere between $300 and $500, they should get $500 for it. They 
> don’t take into consideration that the pawn shop owner has to make 
> money from reselling it and is actually tying up his money for 
> possibly months.
>
> The same goes for a show called American Pickers. These are guys that 
> drive around the country buying antiques for resale and are often 
> asked to pay more than an item is worth because the owner thinks it’s 
> worth more.
>
> When I go to auctions I always wind up passing on things I want 
> because people will bid more for something that they could buy new 
> with a warranty for less.
>
> Carl
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Spencer Yost <spencer at rdfarms.com>
> To: at at lists.antique-tractor.com
> Sent: Sun, 22 Dec 2019 00:13:19 -0500 (EST)
> Subject: [AT] Antique tractors that are too expensive
>
> 
> We have all seen it:  the tractor the seller is asking way too much 
> for.  Or conversely; why buyers don’t show up for our obviously 
> wonderful tractor that we post in EBay/Craigslist/whatever.
>
> So listening to podcasts tonight, I ran across a podcast that was 
> discussing many things, including a discussion with a psychologist 
> from Berkeley who was explaining the “endowment effect”. I was unaware 
> of this. Though I had intuited it many times I did not know it was a 
> “thing”.
>
> Long story short it explains why people often seem to ask way more for 
> a tractor that I’m willing to pay.
>
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment_effect
>
> https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C34&q=endowment+effect&oq=endowment+
>
>
> Interestingly, this is true regardless of how long they owned it or 
> whether it had any other type (e.g. nostalgia) of value.
>
> Unfortunately, the podcast did not describe how I, the buyer, could 
> negotiate my way around this.
>
> PS:   I will be that seller if I ever sell the Pacer. (-;
>
> Spencer
>
> Sent from my iPhone
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