Is there a market for antique tractors

I am looking at starting my own business and I was wondering if there is a market for buying,fixing up and selling antique tractors? Any input would be great! Thanks in advance.

I was maybe looking at selling them overseas. Any thoughts on that would be great!

I wouldn't think with today's economy. just fixing one is not restoring one.

You can buy some nice restorations between 2800.00 and 5 grand .

I truely hate to say this, but, no. If you can get one cheap enough, you could resell it, if you don't have to invest much into repairs, but scrap steel is selling for about the same as a used antique tractor. At our local scrap yard, where I recently took a load of old appliances, there are several tractors, including what appears to be a Cockshot 20, which are worth more as scrap.

A friend recently went to Great Britain, and brought me back an issue of "Classic Tractor" magazine. Asking prices on old tractors appear to be slightly higher than here, but not enough to cover shipping across the pond.

I agree with the others here- restoring tractors is largely a "labor of love", and when you start putting pencil to it, it's not as pretty as the tractor you just finished.

Due to other interests I sold about 5 of my tractors last year.I was able to get my money out of most of them.Unfortunately the generation that grew up with pre 50's tractors either have them or they are no longer with us.The newer generation they are not into these things anymore.Give them a computer and they are happy.
You can make a small fortune with dealing in old tractors, as long as you start with a Large fortune

Why not try? Pick up something in good condition, clean it up, sell it. See what happens. I agree peak dollars hit several years back, but there are always diamond-in-the-rough bargains out there.

It would depend on which old tractors you are selling over seas.
I had a 1966 Ford 4000 for sale on Craigslist about 1 1/2 years ago and had inquiries about it from 3 people with connections overseas.
One guy from Belize, one from somewhere in Africa and one from a guy with connections in Vietnam. By the time they paid to containerize the tractor and have it shipped none of them couold make the dollars work out. I sold it to a local fellow.
There is not much money in fixing up old tractors for resale here. Too many old farts doing it just as a labor of love and then due to poor health or whatever they have to sell it.
As Old Roy says, you can buy a restored tractor with $2000 worth of new parts in it for $2800.
Not much of a margin there if you count the labor in it.

Yes, The overseas market would be something that could work. IF you could make connections and work your way into it. You are a late comer and it takes years to build up a reputation. And be warned, Full time pay takes FULL TIME WORK.

There used to be, but now with the economy as it is, I don't think so. However, if you want to try, I have some I'd sell you if you're close to Southern Ohio. Keith

(quoted from post at 00:10:30 10/24/11) I am looking at starting my own business and I was wondering if there is a market for buying,fixing up and selling antique tractors? Any input would be great! Thanks in advance.

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The overseas economy is no better than here. You can buy a totally restored, almost any kind of tractor, for between $2500 and $5000.
It is your notion, but I doubt it will work. But don't worry, the politicains are fixing everything as we speak. You know we will soon have "Two Chickens In every Pot".

Here's my two cents. I know three fellows who had collections of tractors and one with a collection of combines.They are selling off all their collection while it still has value.As our generation that grew up using these tractors dies off there are less enthusiastic tractor people left.Our children are not interested,our children grew up using new and modern equipment if they were farm raised. There are less and less farm families...the writing is on the wall.One of my collector friends is in Ohio and he was concerned that if he keeps his collection in tact it will begin to devalue.A friend who has a collection of combines is having a sale next year,reasoning the same,that the value of his collection will not sustain itself.Even auction sales and weekly auctions are dieing off around here. One auctioneer told me young people want new stuff,they aren't interested in used appliances and household goods. He closed his auction after seventeen years of weekly auctions..times have changed and we didn't realize it.The collectors will become less and less..its already happening.There will still be someone who wants to restore grandpa's tractor..those someones will be few and far between..and that's my opinion based on what I see going on around me.

Yup, you can't give them away. Check the auction results around the country and see what they are doing. Here is one from th JD forum from last week.
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heres my opinion,for what its worth.This is what ive found on collections or antiques over the years.For the most part they have no value at all except value to you until sale day.On that day it depends ENTIRELY on the buyer to set the value.If your asking if you could make a living really actually RESTORING old tractors,no i dont think so,the reason is simply because you have so much money and more importantly so much time invested in one,that you really could go to work for min wage at arbys and make a better living.That is of course not counting one of those folks who would buy a tractor at any price if it were rare enough.Now if you could buy one really cheap,well under fair market price,do enough work to get it running well without a large investment,then maybe. You could then sell it at fair market value and make a little.But then again,say you were buying,repairing and selling 8ns.who would you sell them to?Once you sold one to a person,that market is gone.And once you sell one to all the folks close to you wanting a n your pretty much dead in the water.On the other hand though ,i know a lot of guys making good money selling equipment,thats something different.It has a wider market base simply because more folks need it.And its sort of universal in nature.Especially the three point stuff,i wish i had started gathering up all that old three point equipment 20-30 years ago that you could have bought for a song and stacked it up somewhere.This modern food plot deal for deer has drove that stuff out of sight. Again my opinion,but ive been to several auctions lately where guys are there for the equipment only,and are taking it from here up north for resale.These small tractors are fairly easy to transport to and from a hunting lease so the markets there for the equipment that fits it.

The boys and I have been buying and selling, junking out and restoring tractors for years, sales have fallen off to just about nothing the last two years. I have always been told this would happen as the older generation leaves us and I think the time is now. There is a lot of nice stuff for sale around here and nothing is moving. The cost of parts and tires is so high a person just gets buried in a restoration project now days. Paint and material alone for a nice paint job will come up to around $750.00 for a nice job.

Yes and no...

Can you buy a tractor, restore it and sell it for profit? Probably not. Not if you do it right.

Can people come to you and say, "I want this tractor restored". Then yes, you can make money at it. As long as it's clear that the tractor will only be worth about 1/2 what's put into it.

The old tractor market is fading fast, I've sold off all of my relics and was fortunate to make a profit. I wouldn't dare risk going into a business now to buy,repair, or restore them. On the other hand, money can be made quite easily buying used 3 point implements and reselling them. I find old 3 point equipment laying around all the time and do well on Craigslist making a little extra pocket money.

yes,its not one folks like to hear though,why in gods name would someone overseas buy a tractor here anymore?we are buying the tractors built there to use on our places as fast as they can ship them here!again if you are talking about collectors,theres a limited market to start with,and its getting smaller every time they buy the tractor they want for their collection.my opinion,a good mechanic with the rig and the know how to repair one broke down some where would make a better living.theres a fellow by me here that stays really busy fixing them.but repairing one and restoring one is a world of difference.

anything theres a lot of will have poor resale, and this economy has killed the low end market. This includes most farmalls, JD's, Fords etc. Take a serious look at auction sales and the big antique consignements and see what fixer uppers go for vs restored on average and where the real money is going. The bottom has dropped out of a lot of the tractor market, but there is still a market for certain niches. Oddballs, very early, earlier orphans etc still have value (I wish the bottom had dropped out of them so could afford to buy more!) but you'll never make money restoring and selling JD A's and B's, Farmall or fordsons; just not enough upside. You can by nicely restored for less then just a paint job in some cases, let alone the same or more in parts.

You REALLY need to know what market values are, and not jsut what is advertised. Also need to be able to tell when an auction price is an outlier and not an actual value. Family members or locals bidding on a local heritage tractor? Nice paint job but gearing totally destroyed? just because someone is advertising a tractor for 50,000 doesn't mean its worth 50,000, it might only be worth 15,000 but he was just hoping for that magic sucker. If you can pick up tractors with upside cheap enough, then restore and sell em but don't try and make it the main buisness. Another factor is if you do go where the money, is when you need parts they WILL be expensive IF you can find them. Chances are you you will need to be able to fabricate or have cast gears and other parts with minimal or no original part.

Your best bet to making money is to do a few restorations to start with. document them well and do restorations for people who pay you to do it. People are willing to spend a lot more money on a first class resto job on a tractor they already have then on a resto job on a tractor for sale. Above all customer service and honesty, tick off one guy and your name is likely to be all over the internet in a bad way.

i see the only people who buy/sell tractors, are tractor people themselves, not like a car lot where every one needs one to get to work, stores,etc, and every one will look on your lot to buy one to drive everyday..and like car lots, they don't put a lot of money in a car to sell,,just enough to sell it. that's why every one looks on c-list and fleabay for tractors, no taxes, fees, overhead/employees to pay.....but i could wrong, you could try and do good...my opinion

I went to one of the premier antique/vintage tractor auctions this past summer. I could tell on the expressions on the auctioneer's face and his staff that things were going way too cheap. I talked to the auctioneer afterwards, (they are a travelling organization) he said it was slow all over but this sale was a little worse.

I talked to the owner of a JD 730 with a complete professional restoration, he had over $40k in recepts (in addition to the cost of tractor) with pictures, etc. and was trying to get $20k for it. This was a little over a year ago. If anything, the market is softer now.

I went to a tractor show several months ago. I'm 50 and I felt like a toddler there. Most were 70+ in age.

The multitude of full page auctions ads in tractor publications each month because the owner died and his collection is being sold off should answer your question.

Antique tractor prices were dropping way before the downturn in the economy.

If you are going to ship overseas you have to have available as many tractors that will fit in that container to make any kind of money just to bring the shipping cost average to a somewhat affordable level.A couple I had went that way.I would never sell a rare one to a overseas buyer.We should keep those right here.

Vito

No money in buying them, restoring them, and selling them again, if you do the restoration right. You'll have 2 or 3 times or even more invested in the tractor than what it will sell for.

This one may be better than shown Pic may be doing it injustice... This is asking price.. not what he will take if he has to set on it for awhile bet 3500 would get it .
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I like where he says "You will not find one like this anywhere."
Zach

You know if you are good with older tractors and the less technological machines, you could try doing custom work. You could try rebuilding and restoring tractors for customers that have a workable tractor. I've been doing that from time to time. Plenty of people have old tractors that are willing to pay a reasonable amount to resore thier tractor to working condition vise paying the price of the new compact tractors. I wouldn't go around trying to speculate on the restoring of an older tractor, that is probably worth more as scrap, unless you have reason to feel that parts off it can be sold to customers. Common tractors, such as 8N fords or Allis Chalmers B's and C's, are pretty safe investments.

Me too I have seen many of them and unless the lighting for that pic is off others looked nicer for same or less money . Deeres are dropping too not just because archery season is in.

Value of restorations depends so much on the desirability of what you are restoring. The piece below on the Farmall M reminds me of a conversation I heard between a guy who had restored a car, and an appraiser: Guy had restored his grandfather's '50 Plymouth 4 door, at a cost of over $10,000. It was a car that had a lot of sentimental value to his family- Grandpa had it forever, everyone remembered going for ice cream in it, trips to the lake, etc., etc.

He had a change in circumstances, and was trying to sell it. Had started at 10K, gradually lowered to 5K, wouldn't go any lower, and was getting more and more upset that nobody would buy it. Appraiser summed it up well- "The problem is, no matter what you do, the car is still a '50 Plymouth 4 door."

You guys are missing something if you buy a rare tractor cheap you can easily make money. Look at these results from the weekend.
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The market for "antique" tractors is falling off fast as we old cogers that grew up with them are becoming old. I've had a beautifully restored JD 60 with all the factory options for sale for 12 years. During those 12 years, I've sold thirty-some hobby farmer and mower tractors at about the 60's price.