Who will collect old tractors in the future???

A good friend and I where just talking yesterday about this. I think many of our old tractors will not be worth much in the years to come. Not many of the younger guys grew up with them and don"t have the interest. Plus these younger guy don"t have the income to collect them with raising a family these days.

We are reminiscing about a time gone by. We also have selective memory about it too. My first tractor was JD "G", no power steering or three point hitch. I was not sad the day it when down the road after I replaced it with a JD 3020. If you had to use our old iron day in and day out it would not be as fun. The newer tractors are better/handier to use. Just having a good three point is a real blessing.

Already the more common tractors are dropping in value. You can buy good restored John Deere letter series for under $2500 around here all day long. The little Fords and MF are holding better because of them having three point. Look at what IH M"s and H"s are going for. I was at a sale yesterday where two real nice running IH M"s did not break a grand each. I should have bought the one as it had good 15.5 x38 tires on it. I could have used the set on a JD 2520 I have.

Ya,there's already a real wide gap between what some folks THINK these things are worth and reality.
Most of them only bring decent money at auctions if there are 2 people there who collect the same brand. As far as the collectors of other colors are concerned,the brand they don't collect might as well go to the boneyard.

I turned 11 years old in the spring of 1966 when the big new 2510 arrived! I was not unhappy to see the 50 go. Can you imagine sending a kid to the field with a JD 50 and 4 row front mounted cultivator? (NO power steering, and no umbrella) It was an impossible situation, I had a hard enough time disengaging the clutch, let alone trying to drive it good enough to cultivate.
Probably this old iron will not be of interest to a generation who didn't experience it.
The bigger issue is whether there will be a country left any of us might recognize.

If I were a collector today I would most defensively have in my will for my collection to be in the family as long as they want , then the next step, to be sold to only other collectors, and the rest to be donated to a museum before being sold for someone to ruin, and sell for scrap.

Two generations from now the appreciation will be all but gone.

"I would most defensively have in my will for my collection to be in the family as long as they want , then the next step, to be sold to only other collectors, and the rest to be donated to a museum before being sold for someone to ruin, and sell for scrap."

GOOD LUCK enforcing THAT after you're dead and gone!

It happened with cars and will with tractors also probably. But, cars have come back and tractors will also. They don't make 2 cylinder JD's any more . My son has a 64 Chevelle that he is restoring. I never owned a Chevy and he was 8 years old when they came out but it interests him so that is what he is doing. Somebody will always want to collect something, just look in your garage or shed. Prices might reflect the need for cash rather than the desire to be collecting.

I feel sorry for the people that are selling a restored tractor for $2500.00. And if they are enough so you could buy them all day long there must be enough supply that the prices should come down more.
I've heard to restore a tractor cost many thousand dollars.At $2500.00 you'd get not much more than your wheels tires and paint money.
Really sad.

I"m just going to enjoy them while I"m alive. I have already given my kids the tractors I currently have with me retaining lifetime use. What happens after that is up to them, good or bad.

you are right.I started maybe collecting old iron about 15 years ago.Great hobby,I do it all make them run,sandblast and paint.When there is a problem I would talk to the older generation that have the know how.Once a tractor was done my sons would drive them around the fields for many hours.But now my boy"s are in their late teens and early twenty"s.They have other interests now.Stock cars,girlfriends and beer.15 year"s ago I thought that these tractor"s would keep their value.But like you said who is going to buy them once the older generation passes on?
I belong to a local antique tractor club and quess what I"ve been one of the yougest members for the 15 year"s that I have belonged to this club.But as long as we enjoy what we do that is important.

I am actually 19 at the moment and purchased my first antique tractor which is a 1951 Oliver Fleetline Row Crop 77. Even though I did not grow up using or being around these antique tractors they are interesting and think about in my spare time. Thanks to this website and all the guys on it I have learned a great deal of information about my tractor as well as others. My main purpose for my tractor is pulling but I would hate to see any tractor no matter the brand go to scrap yard. When I start talking about my tractor around others my age it is sorda akward becuase they have no idea what or why I'm talking about tractors. Theres not to many antiques around here where I live, unless you go to a pull, but spending my spare time with my 77, I consider it time well spent.

Hi Bob. Never had the pleasure of running a 50 with a 4-row. Sat for days, seemed like months, on a hand crank styled B with a 2-row. You could actually see the corn grow before you got thru each stage. Brings back lots of memories, good and bad.

in sure somebody will still have a intrest in them especially if we work to instill that intrest, hopefully the tractors wont go the way of old cars and skyrocket to the point that only the very rich can afford to play, for us they bring back memories of younger days on the farm, some like them for their simplicity in the age of complicated computerstuff, but i think its a good idea to make a plan for our tractors even if its just one tractor, check out family members to see who is intrested in preserving your tractor, if nobody has a intrest, make arangements in your will for it to go to somebody or someplace that will take care of it for future generations, too many times we see where somebodys kid from the city inherits the old place and just cant wait to scrap out all of grandpa, or dads "old junk" for beer, plazma tv, or drug money, once these old machines are gone, there gone, they'll show up again as part of a chinamans cheap junk do all you can to keep them going, if your parting one, remember before you call the scrap man somebody may pay a few dollars more to get that one missing part for his or buy the whole scrap tractor to keep his running

Last fall I was talking to a guy who repairs/restores older cars. He does primarily 60-70s muscle cars. His perspective was that the older car market reached it's peak in value a few years ago. He said crowd that valued them and always wanted a Goat, Mustang or Charger was a Baby Boomer who didn't get one when he was a kid.
Those Boomers are getting older and a lot of them have taken a pretty good hit in their retirement plans/stock market in the last few years.
He said there were few of the younger generation showing much of an interest in the Muscle Cars - at least around his business.
I don't know where the old cars and tractors will go when we're done with them. I suppose there will always be a market for scrap iron.
Sad.

I am 21 and I have more stuff than I care to list out. There are several of us out there that like the old stuff but prices are way to high on some of it or it takes a while to find a good deal on a complete tractor. It took a while for me to find a Twin City MTA with duals but I finally did!

Collect and restore tractors for your own joy. When you are gone someone will end up with them.Probably the scrapper.Most of these old machines were retired for a good reason working wise. They became obsolete to work with. A few very rare machine will hold value simply becaue they are rare. Most will NOT.
But you will have enjoyed them. This is not a hobby to make money, its a hobby to enjoy old tractors and memories of our youth.
Better yet use your old tractors to help youngsters Make new moemories so THEY will want to have a tractor so they too can have good memories for THEIR youth and pass it along to their kids too.

It just changes as to what you grew up with or started farming with. I'm 31 and grew up on tractors from the 60's-70's and thats what I like. I really don't care much for the older ones.

Our future generation is getting further removed from its agricultural roots. When we loose a direct link we loose interest. However, with that being said, I see many youngsters at threshing bees and antique tractor shows.

Sherry must have realized that when she came out with Heritage Iron Magazine.

I think ericlb has a point about pricing them right out of the market. That's what happened to the toy tractor market as far as I'm concerned. It was fun looking for the old stuff,maybe doing a little customizing,but it got to where there were about a dozen new models of old tractors coming out every week.
The thing that finally soured me to it,and I still remember the day and the toy show where it happened,there was a series of collector tractors that came out,one every year,and I had the first three or four,then the next one came out with a price of $100. To make matters even worse,after the collector market was flooded with these toys,they would come out with a "shelf model". A little change in the material of the wheels or something and they'd sell them for $15 or less.
Total turnoff if the hobby gets that greedy somehow in the antique tractor market.

This is a slippery slope for me.

Im 29 worked on cars my whole life, went to school for collision then worked in restoration shops. Now I have my own, I've been on my own for 4 years in August.

Both my grandparents were farmers I grew up around tractors and combines. I try very, very hard to chase tractors, impliments and stationary engines. Those are my favorite things to restore and work on. I would rather do 20 sickle-bar mowers compared to 1 Nomad. The only problem is there is no money in the 20 mowers just love, but love doesnt pay the power bill.
The hardest thing I find is a person with a tractor of such that wants it restored to new, but cant afford it so they just sell it off.
Most of my customers are all 45 or older I have yet to find a customer my age. I have friends that are into tractors, but they are all older. I try not to think about 20 years from now. I really dont look forward to stripping and painting a Honda or a Kia

Who will collect them? The Chinese, that is who. Grind 'em up, melt 'em down & manufacture things........like we don't do anymore.

I will!!! I love the old machinery, the older the better as it is rich in history. I am partial to John Deere but I love any and all old Iron. I"m 19 and have been collecting antique tractors and implements and classic cars since I was 14. Plan on opening an Antique Tractor and Implement Museum and also a Classic Car Museum.

So, If you have any old iron to supplement my museum I gladly accept donations. HAHA

From Denton, Nebraska.
Andrew Kean.

It would seem that most of us like to collect what we grew up with, maybe what our fathers and grandfathers have, but JDSeller you probably don't collect horse drawn equipment do you? Probably not, because it isn't what you , or at least most of us grew up with. So the present generation won't for the most part collect tractors and equipment we grew up with.

Each generation tends to collect the stuff they grew up with and can relate to. That's why you don't see as many steam engines and model A Fords as you did 40 years ago.
One can only hope that our equipment will someday end up with someone else who appreciates it as much as we do. But there's no guarantees of that unless we make those arrangements while we are alive. Even then, once it belongs to someone else, we no longer have control over it. And the second we draw our last breath, it ALL belongs to someone else!

35-40 years ago older tractors and farm equiptment that I got a hold of got the torch and sledge hammer now I hate to see it go to the crusher. I dont have the land or money to save it so I just tear up at some of the stuff in scrap yard thats gone forever.

rr;
I couldn't agree with you more, on where toy collecting went. I have a very extensive CASE collection, but have only added maybe 4 pieces in the past ten years and they were all Precisions. As you said they made one new casting and put diff. tires or duals and a "special event sticker" and called it a limited edition.
As far as real tractors go, I think you have to compare how many of us grew up on farms in the 50s compared to the number of kids on farms today, who will carry on the traditions, which have changed dramatically in the past fifty years.Their fond memories of the first tractor they drove, will be different, than ours.

MY son!

Good call greenday!! I hope my boy likes this stuff as much as I do.

Yea I love that mag.

I got to thinking more about this and how I like tractors from the 60's and 70's. My newest tractor is an 04 and it's nice and I'll trade it off in a few years and get another one, but half of the thing is plastic. I don't think many of these will get fixed up in 50 years.

The other reason you don't see as many steam engines and model A Fords as you did 40 years ago is that 40 more years have gone by and they're even harder to find!

I'm 43 but if I ran accross a steam engine(or any of the real early tractors) I'd sure as heck drag it home! As for Model A's, I do have a couple.

I'm 31 and just got into collecting with my dad now that he's retired. Our interest tends more to the pre WW2 stuff (and specifically are concentrating on the local Heider and Rock Island), and honestly, if it wasn't for dad, I don't think I would have gotten into it. If I finally had, it would have been much later in life and probably not in this way. I've been going to shows since I was a kid, and our farm wasn't exactly state of the art so antique tractors aren't new to me. Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed my self a lot getting into it, but for me to have gone out on my own to do it would have been extremely difficult; to actually take the next step and collect, restore and educate was a tough one.

I think that third one is the one everyone forgets, and is why tractor collectors as a group have become their own worst enemies. To many are hoarders, jealousy guarding their prizes in dusty museums. Those shows with active events where old machines are working, watching the memorized faces of the spectators, you have to think there is hope for the future if people would just nurture it. Take the time to talk to spectators, answer questions and explain that an oil pull is not a steam engine.

as for why it seems like there are fewer old steamers and big tractors around, its not because many of them have been scrapped the last few years. More are now sitting in massive collections quietly deteriorating again. Hauling those big tractors is a major undertaking to any show, and many people that have them have more then one, so even if they do attend shows, they are bringing only one or two. Its a shame, because many of these folks are experts and custodians of history, but you are going to see a lot less at shows with one guy owning 10 tractors instead of 7 or 8 people owning those tractors.

Cost as well is a big issue, its not just the tractor but you also need a place to store it and a way to move it. An interesting fact of human nature is, people are interested most in what they think they can obtain. If they don't think they can ever own a 10, 20, 30, $100k tractor, they probably aren't going to be nearly so inclined to do research and become historians of that type of thing.

19, work on a farm and work at a JD dealership I bought and own/owned 5 tractors. I think im off to a good start =)

Me! I'm 20 and this old stuff is all I can afford! It's a great stress reliever from college.

meee!!!!!! i love all the old tractors and equipment!