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Tom S.
02-11-2000 15:59:48
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I'll give you Oliver guys credit for one thing, you have some of the most thought provoking discussions anywhere on the net.
I have been increasing my typing skills over the last few weeks explaining to writers at various boards about the steady incline in the used/reman tractor market, during the decline of the new market. I have sold out now, but often regret it. Used tractor been very very good to me. I still am looking foward to pretty weather and consignment sales. I keep telling folks complaining about out of reach new tractor prices, the pitfalls of leases and leins, and the merits of obtaining previously owned machinery already depreciated out, for a fraction of the cost. Fact. You can hock you're land or actually have posession of something, including you're land. In the heyday about 2 years ago, I sold a restored 2 row corn planter to a part-time producer to plant livestock feed on small acerages. He gave a couple hundred more than the machine actually sold for new, because like he said, there is not anything else to be had new 'for any price'. And the same holds true for utility tractors. There are no domestically produced smaller hp, compact tractors any more, at all. I know men who would hock the farm and give 60 to 80K for a 'new' 50 bu. combine. But because there is no such thing as a new one, I have personally witnessed them spend tens of thousands on 1960's machines, so they would not have to be dependant on a contractor and take advantage of weather, labor, etc. And by and large this is cash money they saved up, not terms. Fact.
It's easy to understand the price an old narrow JD or Farmall or even an 8-N will bring to a collector or suburbanite, but the price today of a 4020 JD console or a 1066 International TA is another matter entirely, Hot Line Blue Book be damned. The corporate giants refused to take care of the less wealthy market share over recent years, and as a result, have boxed themselves in a precariously narrow high end market. And now they won't admit to the share holders, the old tractor replacement parts network is the only thing presently saving their bacon. Once again, even if somebody calls it a pipe dream, my hat's off to you guys, because I like you're way of thinking. Bear in mind, I can't remember the last time I saw an Oliver sold, the principle still applies. With failing big business, there is a vast market wide open right now, still. There is a world full of small scale part-time producers out there who supplement their household income and kids education with cows and truck crops. A lot are using machines their grand parents bought and paid for on land that has had the same deeded name for a century or more. I pray we don't have to be entirely dependant on them to be fed again, though. I think it should be a punishible law to junk an operational piece of farm machinery! Exciting for a change! Tom S.
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