Got any good stories of buying and selling??

Me and a couple buddies swapped some stories the other day, I'm sure you guys have some good ones. One of my more funny ones is that I bought a GMC tandem with a screaming Detroit at a farm auction for something like $2200 I think. Wife was pregnant with first child, she was just thrilled to say the least. In a week or two, I got it sold on a friday night for $4500. Came home, she was so happy and impressed that I could turn it for a couple grand. Decided to go to another auction Saturday morning. Ended up buying a really nice M and H that I still have today (the H may be my favorite tractor out of the bunch) and blew all the money I made the night before plus another grand I think. I went from being the best guy in the world to the bottom of the barrel in 15 hours I think. Then to top it off, I had a real junky trailer and she had to help hold and move the ramp for me while pregnant for me to drive the tractors off. A funny day we still talk about. We're still together after 14 years!!

I don't know. Last fall I saw a father son team who like to do the "secret bidding" thing. The father cupped his chin and move his index finger across his cheek to indicate his next bid and his son would also make sly little moves to bid. Standing next to each other they ran an item up a couple of hundred dollars bidding against each other. They didn't know they were both bidding.

My wife, at her 1st auction where she was bidding, got stopped by the auctioneer who told her she was bidding against herself.

Rick

After passenger train service was all but dead in Texas me and my brother bought one of the baggage carts and was hauling it to the farm. A crowed gethered when we stopped for fuel. Sold the cart on the spot for 3 times what we paid. Long story short,we wound up selling more than 50 carts over the following months,with most bringing 20 fold our cost. That was the start of buying other railway items but will save those storys for later.

Stopping her was the sign of an honest auctioneer. We have a local one who uses his floor helpers to run up a bid. Most of the locals have caught on and will not bid once he starts this but it is not unusual to watch a newcomer fall into the bidding trap.

Now that was an honest auctioneer !

At Tri-green auction in London OH they drive the ractors thru a building to sell them and if you want you can drive them thru yourself.A friend was driving a nice 3010 thru so I hopped up on the fender when the bidding began I held up four fingers and he held up three so the auctioneer said looks like $7000 and I replied real loud yes and put him in(pointing to my friend)everyone laughed and neither one of us got the tractor.This was in the early 90's when you could still have alot of fun in the equipment business.

I bought a Massey Ferguson 130 (no, not a misprint- it was a 130) at the Woodburn Auction in Oregon- hadn't really looked at it, but it was only bringing $1,750 for a MF diesel, how could I go wrong? So I took it home for $1,800.

The 3 point arms were dragging on the ground, so I figured the hydraulic system needed cleaned up, and new filter. Also, it leaked hydraulic oil where the rear axle housing had broken, and someone welded it all up. A real cob-job, looked like he11.

Went to the local tractor salvage place, run by a friend of mine. Asked if he had any manuals for a MF 130- his eyes lit up, and he said "You bet"! Brought out both parts and service manuals. He said, "Now, you keep these when you're done. Give 'em to the new owner, or throw 'em away. But I don't ever want to see them again." I asked why, and he laughed, "Because if I don't have the manuals, I have a good excuse never to work on one of those *&%$ things ever again!" Turned out he did have the rear axle housing out in the boneyard, so that problem was solved.

I got into the hydraulic system, and sure enough, it was just dirty and completely plugged up. Cleaned it up, new filter, and it worked! Boy, I'll turn a grand on this baby, easy!

Took it out and used it, and the dew started to fall off the lily. Engine was just plain tired- hard starting, and missed on the back cylinder (and smoked like a chimney) until it got warmed up. 3 point wouldn't hold position- leaking by the piston, I surmised.

Took it to local consignment auction, in Chehalis. Struggled to get to $1,600, so I bid it back in.

Took it back to Woodburn, and was thrilled when some guy took it off my hands for $2,100. Almost broke even, if you don't count my time, and hauling it all over kingdom come to get rid of it. I happened to be out back, and overheard the new owner as he looked it over with his friend. He finally got around to looking at the tag below the steering wheel, and his reaction was priceless: "WHAT? Made in &^%#%$ FRANCE? Oh, ^%*#@&%$!"

I still have a reminder of it- I built a stairway to my overhead storage area, hinged at the top, with cables so I can lift it up overhead and out of the way. I used the cobbled up rear axle housing as the counter weight.

Still have a few old tractors with fairly minor problems that need fixed, which I will do if I ever retire. As we say in the tractor jockey business, "Your triumphs are soon forgotten, but your mistakes accumulate."

I just perchased a 1947 Farmall H for $2500, it has been restored but the grille needs work. I has been used for pulling for most of it's life. it has all the thing a H is ushually missing like a battery box tool box and working lights. it has a new belt pulley and 14.9 tires on the back, planning on pulling it this year!!!

I was at a dealers "Equipment Liquidation Auction" a few years back. I accidentally bought a JD 24T baler for $500 because I thought it was too cheap. I left it sit there because I had no way to get it home that day. A few days went by and I was thinking I'd better go get it and the dealer called. They had a customer there interested in it. Told them to sell it and send me a check. I don't know what they sold it for but I got a check a week later in the mail for $2000!

Casey in SD

I had a real nice looking 1256 IH that I wanted to sell. It had near new paint and new tires but the turbo and ta were shot. Shocking I know. lol. Anyway I listed it for sale in the local paper for $8500.00. Got a few calls but no buyers. I went to a friend and tractor jockey and asked him what he would pay me for it. He said my problem was I didn't ask enough. He said when people see that price and how good it looks they think it must be junk and won't buy it. So I re-listed it for $12,500, making sure I mentioned the bad turbo and ta. Someone came and bought it the first week and didn't even try to bargain. I laughed all the way to the bank.

Always looking for Allis Chalmers Model M crawlers. I found a couple near me a friend of mine had for 600 each. Not bad. A few weeks later he called and said he wanted one back. He missed his tractor. I have more than I need, so I sold it back for what I paid for it. Now I still have a friend. Stan

Back around maybe 1978, I had a '65 Chevy Bel Air for sale. Plain Jane, straight 6 engine, no power equipment.

A kid I knew called me and came to check it out. He wanted a work car so he wouldn't have to drive his good car to work. I asked him $250 for the car. (Remember this was the 1970's). He told me he'd think about it.

A few days later, I ran into the kid's father on the street in town. He offered me $175. I knew the father well enough to know if he offered $175, you did't hold out for $176, 'cause it wouldn't come. So I told the father I'd take $175. Figured it was better than having the car sit around all winter. He said they'd stop over in a day or so and pick the car up.

An hour after I got home, the kid called. Said he wanted the car, but he was a little short on money and could only offer me $200.

I said, "Hey, Mark, have you talked to your dad lately?" He said, "No, why?"

I told him I'd just sold the car to his dad for $175.

We still laugh about it.

I went 90 miles to an auction for a 15 foot bean head for a Gleaner F2. Things went cheap, bought about 5 machines, mostly to resell. Seller had two combines, F and G......auctioneer says he'll sell choice, and 3 heads go with the F, 3 with the G. Quickly added up what I could pay for the F and heads, decided on $4000. Got choice at $2000, sold the black 438 corn head for $3250, drove the combine home, still have it and two heads. Kicked myself I let an IH 13 foot drill go for $850, but was running low on funds.

In 1999 I bought a new Kubota to replace a '65 Ford 2000 (That was before I knew you could own more than 1 tractor). A colleague of mine asked to buy the 2000 as a Christmas present for her husband. He had some acreage that he had to mow periodically and his 'old' tractors was in a sorry state. I tried to convince my friend that her husband should look at my 2000 before she committed but she wanted it to be a surprise. Many months went by and I didn't hear anything about the surprise present. Finally I asked the husband how the 2000 was and his only comment was "it's a danged Ford." Turned out he was a Farmall guy. He never did run the tractor and finally gave it away to a neighbor.

In the fall of 1973, I needed to upgrade the sheet metal on a '69 Chevelle late model stock car, both for cosmetics and because the rules we ran under required stock sheet metal within the last 5 model years. (We just used the outer skin).

I located, and bought, a '72 Chevelle body shell and frame. The car had taken a front end hit and the fenders, hood, engine, and transmission were gone. Which was OK 'cause all I wanted was the body shell. Fenders and hood were easy to find. The car did still have nice white vinyl bucket front seats and matching rear seat in it.

After I picked the car up with a trailer, I stopped to gas up my pickup. Before I left the station, I sold the seats out of the car for more than I'd paid for the car.

A few years ago I was at the home of an aquaintance that was in the (sign) business admiring a 12 gauge finger brake that was a little over 96" wide. Basically a social call.

A few weeks later he calls me up at 7pm or so and says he has to sell somthing to make his mortgage payment the next day or he would lose his home. I told him that I didn't have that kind of cash laying around.

He told me "give me $300 cash and it is yours". So a couple of hours later I pulled up to the shop with the flatbed and unloaded my great bargain.

I was rather enthused about the affair and even made a sign cabinet with the patterns included and made some really nice aluminum trays for my jobbox.

Shortly thereafter my affair with the machine waned when it always seemed to be in the way wherever I put it and it literally weighed a ton to move.

So, when another sign guy was visiting ME he saw the brake and offered me $1200. Needless to say he was the proud new owner straightaway.

Kinda wish I had traded it in on an Ironworker in hindsight though.

Brad

When I was a GM salesman, we traded for a Chevy Caprice. 90K miles, perfect body, paint, and interior. Only after we traded for it, we found it kept fouling the #8 spark plug. Badly. Put a new plug in the #8 hole, juggle the car around on the lot for a few days, and the plug was fouled again.

Service Dept thought the intake gasket might be leaking and installed new intake gaskets. Didn't make any difference. The car got parked on the back row of the used car lot and ignored for a few weeks. One day I asked the Sales Manager what he'd sell it to me for. He replied, "How about $100 just to get the dammed thing out of my sight". I told him he had a deal.

I ran the car out to my shop, pulled the valve covers, and found so much sludge on top of the cylinder heads that the oil drain down hole by the #8 cylinder was plugged. Oil had been piling up above the guide on the #8 intake valve. I opened the hole, cleaned up the tops of the heads and put the valve covers back on. That cured it of fouling the plug, but it still got only a couple hundred miled to a quart of oil.

I built a fresh 305 engine and figured when I had a free weekend I'd swap engines. Meanwhile, my wife started commuting to work with it, 20 miles of open highway each way. Within a month, the car stopped using oil completely. The old geezer who had owned it had just putted aroud town, and the engine was so sooted up and gummed up it took a few thousand miles of open road for the engine to clean itself out and quit using oil.

I never did swap engines. To make a long story short, we put over 50,000 miles on the car with only basic maintenance and sold it for $1200. Plus I made several hundred when I sold the engine I'd built up for it.

The Sales Manager never said another word about it, and I sure as heck didn't volunteer anything.

Livestock auction winter about 12 years ago, they brought out a pretty little palamino gelding. My middle daughter, about five at the time wanted to bid- I told her do it once, do it early, no more (thinking I'd let her get the experience in and we'd be done with it). At $320, she let out a loud yelp, and the place went still. Before I knew it- I got 320,340?340?340? sold and we're taking home a horse.
Fast forward a year ahead, we'd spent a winter working with the horse and the girls started to show him. He was a good looking horse. They won talk/trot in the morning with him, and he'd spent an entire day tied to the side of the trailer while they were with other animals. As we were leaving, a woman came up to me and said she had watched that horse all day, she liked the way it had gone and how it looked, and really appreciated how calm he had been all day by himself- would we be interested in selling it? Joking, i said i couldn't take a bit less than 10 grand for him or my wife and girls would kill me. She responded, I'll give you 7 if he vets and you take it in 3 payments.
2 weeks later, she picked up the horse- and she made all three payments on time. wife and daughters wailed like banshees.We used the profit to buy a metal barn, and say that Fritz is the horse that built the farm. Might be the only time I've ever made money on a horse. We've got 11 of em now- it was the beginning of a bad habit.

The wife and I wanted to get a small car a few years after we got married, so we found a Chevette that an insurance company was selling that it had created from two vehicles they had totaled out. It was a black car with a white interior, a combination that Chevy never offered. The original cars were black with black interior (the front end donor) and red with white interior (the rear donor). Only paid $1000 for it, drove it for three years and sold it for $1,600.

My grandfather bought a real nice little Morgan horse just for my grandmother to drive. That gave her freedom and mobility after my grandfather hooked the Morgan up to a buggy or cutter. She was really happy to be able to zip about independently. Then one day, my grandfather sold the Morgan horse and bought a bunch of farm machinery with the money. Was my grandmother ever ticked. So much so that my grandfather hurried into town and bought a brand new 1914 Model T Ford and taught her to drive it. Then things were OK. He kept on buying Model Ts until they wern't made anymore and then he bought a Model A. That, it turned out, was a little too much car for my grandmother to master. The shifting and different pedals, etc. She said: "You go ahead and do the driving from now on". Most people today could learn to drive a Model A without very much trouble but probably would find the Model T a little mystifying.

It was our 20 year wedding anniversary. Like most men I know, I had no clue what to get. Long story short....we bought her ring at JB Robinson, and received a guarentee that the ring would increase in value x amount over x years. We go to the store, she picks a big ring that just happened to be on sale. When it was all said and done, her new diamond wedding ring cost $7.00. Since we had $'s left over, we went to a steak house for a real nice dinner.

Nope....didn't get the same kinda deal with the new ring.

He finally got around to looking at the tag below the steering wheel, and his reaction was priceless: "WHAT? Made in &^%#%$ FRANCE? Oh, ^%*#@&%$!"

Click to expand...

HAHA there were a few 130's around here, same deal, people bought them thinking they were the same as a 135 but a little cheaper.

A friend of mine and I both work at the local Case-IH dealership in a local town close to us. The dealership had a tractor setting in their junker row a Case 700 tractor with two gears out of it or so we thought . He hauled it to his father-in-laws place. Tore it down outside and ordered parts for it . He never got back to it and it sat for several months with a tarp over it. One day he comes to me and says you ought to have a Case in my line up. He sold it to me and I drug it home and worked on it on my trailer. Turned out it needed two shift forks and a bearing . I put it together , replaced the precleaner bowl , batterys and new hoses for the remotes. Serviced the entire tractor , filters and oil. Quickly learned it was a great tractor until if dropped below 40 degrees outside. So one day he noticed I had it running and asked what I thought of it . I told him I liked it but it was no good to me if it was going to be hard to start in the winter. He said it would be perfect for what he wanted mainly to mow with. So he offered to pay me for repairs and parts and give me back what I gave him for it . So I sold it back to him. We were both happy. Jeff.

This is more my wife"s story than mine. Her used-car-salesman father always claims everything he has is for sale. She says he proved it once when she was a small girl. Her parents left home in central Iowa with her and her brother and sister on a road-trip vacation. Her Dad couldn"t pass by a car auction in Chicago and, once they"d stopped, couldn"t help himself from sending the car they were on vacation in down the line, "just to see what she"d bring". It sold, of course. There are many versions of the story about why all the remaining cars went down the line without her Dad buying something they could drive away in. I prefer the one that has him drinking beer, regardless, the last car went and he turned to see his glaring wife and three kids sitting on their suitcases on the ground. A $300 beater got them out of there, but I don"t think it stopped my mom-in-law from scowling.

A dozen or more years ago, I was bringing one of my young kids back from a peewee baseball game and there was a beautiful Ford Aerostar sitting along side the road with a "For Sale" sign on it. We had three kids, so a vehicle like that always catches my attention. I stopped and looked at it and it was beautiful, inside and out. I called the guy up and he said there was nothing wrong with it....except the tranny was shot. He wanted $700, I got him down to $400 and for that price he even delivered it to my house. The guy was a well-known mechanic in the area. I was just about ready to yank out the tranny and tear into it when I noticed the pan gasket was leaking. Just on a hunch, I put in a new tranny filter and gasket, filled it up with fluid and put another 100K miles on it without having any tranny problems. My father-in-law asked me if I felt bad about ripping off the previous owner. I told him "Nope, he was a mechanic and should have known better."

I found a boat trailer for sale on CraigsList that I wanted to replace mine.
I figured I could sand blast it, fix it all up and then transfer my fishing boat to it.
In the pictures it had a boat on it, but only the trailer was listed for sale.
I went to look at it, looked like it would work for me so I told the man I'd take it.
Didn't even haggle with him on price.
We were talking about boats and tractors for an hour or so, and he took at
least three calls on that trailer. Told them all it was sold.
So when I got ready to go I asked him what he wanted to do with the boat.
He said "it goes with the trailer".
I told him I didn't really want the boat, I wanted to fix the trailer and transfer
my boat to it, so that boat would only be in my way.
He cut the price in half, just to get me to take that stinkin' boat.
I'm sure he got the better part of the deal, because I couldn't just throw it away.
Many hours worth of labor, and a few dollars later, it looked like this, and
my old fishing boat is still on the same old trailer!

The owner of the dealership, at which I worked, Asked if we wanted to buy a 64 dodge for 50 Bucks. I said yes if it runs. He said it drove here. I bought it. I never even looked at it, as I was working on a car for a customer. I man walked in and asked who owned the dodge. I claimed it. He said is it for sale. I said 150. He said sold. I walked out to "see" the car. It was a driver, but the hundred was nicer as I was a Ford Kind Of Guy. Jim

Not my story but some good friends who were antique dealers at the same time as us. We went to the Brimfield, MA antique shows in the fall session. We were just buying but our friends were selling and set up on the same site they had been for many years. Their show opened on Weds. They brought a really nice Ohio made painted cupboard. We helped them unload the truck during the initial frenzy (no unloading allowed until the show opened). The cupboard sold almost instantly once we got it off the truck, handing a wad of cash to our friend. The guy wanted to leave it there so we moved it over to a corner of the canopy we had set up. About a half hour later the guy came back with a lady in tow, showed it to her and she bought it, peeling off hundred dollar bills from a big roll. They left it there. Another half hour or so passed and the lady comes back with another lady, showed the cupboard and sold it to her. This happened one more time before the day was done, price going from about $1,700 to over $5,000 some. We helped the last lady load it on top of a Subaru that she was putting on the ferry back to Long Island. Never saw so much cash change hands over one item that never moved in my life.

Bought a running Ford 6000 Commander diesel, with turbo, to use for a chore tractor. After a few years on the feeder wagon, it quit moving. Money was tight, and it really wasn't worth fixing. Got a salvage bid of $750, delivered to salvage yard 40 miles away. Yard wasnt too crazy about buying it either, and told me that was best offer, so pretty sure i would have gotten less. I think I only gave $1200 for it to start with.
Got about halfway there and water pump went out on the truck. Pulled in to local salebarn, and hitched a ride home.
Got back the next morning, and found a note under the wiper blade, wanting to buy it. Ended up selling it to a guy wanting engine and tires for $1750!