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Dave in GA
05-03-2007 10:46:56
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Re: fixer up buisnes in reply to james in mo, 05-03-2007 08:59:55
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First, welcome to the fraternity of people who like to fix up old tractors. Now as far as being able to get your parts money out of fixing old tractors, most posters on this forum will probably say no. It depends on a lot of factors, and it's like restoring old cars. Using the old car analogy, let's say you come across an unrestored 1953 Buick Special 4-door in a barn. You could buy it fairly cheap, spend 15K on it for a nice restoration, re-doing everything, and be lucky to get 10K for the car. Now if that old car in the barn is a 1953 Buick Skylark convertible, you'll pay more for it up front, but after a restoration, you could get between 50K and 100K for it, and maybe more. Some years and models will easily pay for themselves and the restoration costs AND you'll make a profit. In the tractor world, the vast majority of machines you'll come across are common like the Buick Special. They're a dime a dozen. They're fun to restore, but you'll never get your money out of them. We do it for the love of old tractors and preserving the past. If you can find the unrestored rare tractor, like a Rumely Oil Pull or a Waterloo Boy or an early Allis Chalmers (to mention just a few), and get it cheap, you could make a reasonable profit. I'm gradually restoring 6 tractors from the 1930s, and I'll probably lose on all of them except for the MH Challenger, since it's rare. But I have a lot of fun tinkering with all 6, profit or no profit.
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