Future of tractor collesting

What is your opinion on the value of the McCormick letter series tractors years down the road? Will they increase in value or will the demand fall off after the old guys like me (45-70) start to disappear? What is everyone's thoughts?

I think younger people will stay interested but may lean toward 60-66 series. I am 43 I like a good f-20or30 but like a good 1066 to.

Well, my opinion is that the value will stay flat or go up slightly in my lifetime (currently 53). However, over the long haul, they will go up. These old girls are being scrapped everyday. Go price a Titan or a Mogul........you'll get my point.

As more and more are scrapped or torn down for parts, the source of "cheap" tractors will dry up. As younger people get older, their desire to collect or show or do something changes. Don't get me wrong, some younger people are taking up the hobby, but the ones who have a little play money (ie. can afford to do it, and have the time to do it) will always be around.

I think the biggest impact on this hobby over the long haul is going to be fuel.

You asked, and my opinion is shared.

Demand will decrease but so will supply. Prices may go up or down. Eventually, of course, the machines will become as rare as steam tractors are now. In the end they will be found only in museums. Could take a long time though: the things seem to be nearly indestructable.

Fall off. Look how many less F series tractors there are and they are not worth much. Look how the 06 and up tractor values are increasing so fast. It all has to do with what generation has disposable income.

We all seem to want to collect what we grew up driving, but the cost of storing, showing & hauling a 12,000# tractor may affect that too. Older smaller tractors are lots easier to move.

Dave,IMO, Collecting and Using are Both 1-in-the same and NOT. There are certain series tractors that are are still plentiful in unrestored or field ready, to wore smooth out! Letter series and F-series, and the 460/560s still. The 06s are just scarce Period! Been perusing C.L. off and on for 706s and 806s they are just far and few between! As a rule compared to the Letter, F, and 60 series tractors That is Looking on a major cities, State by State, East to West coast, Mason-Dixion line South! on a 15 to 1 basis! they are just scarce as a general rule every so often a couple of three show up and stay a while!
My point is Scarcity will cause tractor that are good using tractor to be in high demand! the lesser usable ones to a lesser degree!
IE....a wore out 70 to 110 hp tractors sell at most any auction for $3500 to $6000. the Buyer takes it, then sinks $15000 to $20000 in a major redo. He'll have $17000 to $25000 in total money spent. He will have a main stay tractor that will last him 20 yrs at a fraction of what a new one would cost! My Thoughts.
Later,
John A.

As Tom Fleming touched on, the price of oil may figure in as well. Look what the cost of rear tires has done to tractor values. An M holds 2 gallons of oil in the pan and 13 gallons in the rear. The cost of transporting and showing and going to shows and pulls will factor in. So many costs get compounded with an increase in oil prices.

Not trying to sound negative, just adding to the discussion.

(quoted from post at 20:15:24 10/15/13) What is your opinion on the value of the McCormick letter series tractors years down the road? Will they increase in value or will the demand fall off after the old guys like me (45-70) start to disappear? What is everyone's thoughts?

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I think due to fewer and fewer people being raised on farms, the popularity of old tractors will drop off in time. City kids will have little desire to own them, so as us older guys die off, so will the numbers with a connection to old tractors. Really nice originals and restored tractors will always have some value and it may not drop off simply due to inflation, but I doubt over the long haul that prices will increase.

You said tractor "collecting" I believe there is no worse investment than a "Collection" of old Farmalls, running or not running. . Two or three is all you should lose money on, Why have 30 turkeys in the shop. They are barely appreciating any at all. Better to put your money anywhere else. If you restore one you lose even more. If you are not using them, or displaying them, sell them, part them out or scrap them.

My boys love driving my "H". But I think of my Pioneer chain saw, sitting dead on the shelf, used to find parts at several dealers. Try that now.
What I do, every time I need a part from the Case-IH dealer, I buy 2 or 3 others, stick them in the parts box. I don't take it for granted the dealer will always be there, or he'll always have the parts. Don't want to hear 'Sorry, NLA".

Here's a glimpse of the future. This is my daughter that will grab (and safely handle) my M every chance she gets. She has her own tractor, a Farmall A too. She may be the exception, to today's norm.

I lease some farm land for hay and still use vintage tractors for it.

Regardless of what a Farmall is or is not worth this M has value in our family and it's going nowhere!

Stumpy

I really think the bottom is going to fall out of the market as the older generation passes on, and a glut of "collector" tractors hits the market.

Good news for us younger folks with less disposable income. Bad news for Dad because I'll be filling his barns up with old tractors.

I think you will see prices rise, but keeping in mind inflation is a large part of that. People are already figuring out that older tractors are far better investments than newer ones.

Regarding letter series, I think the drawbar only will increase slowly. (well it"ll increase a bit more but mostly for inflation). Tractors with a fast hitch or 3-point will be worth more.

As far as tractor collecting in particular... more of these tractors are taken to scrap each day, so over time the prices WILL go up. Farming isn"t going anywhere, even on the sub 1000 acres farms. If anything, farming has again become possible on smaller farms due to other rising costs.

Oil (or synthtics oils and fuels... which are likely the future as pure electrics just aren"t feasible from a physics standpoint or ultimately financially either... though diesel electrics are [possible) will likely play a part as well (as mentioned) but there will always be something akin to it there as we aren"t going to be abandoning plastics anytime soon.

As far as "investments", they"d be good only from a work standpoint, being several times the tractor as modern equipment of the same price. From collecting... while there are certainly exceptions, on the whole MUCH of the collector market will likely pass after the baby boomers have also passed. That includes cars. While super premium cars will continue to gain, many of the midline cars from the 60s will lose their sentimental value, which has impacted their dollar value.

Though, I"ve often wondered how much collectibility of newer tractors might go, considering that plastic just doesn"t last. In 50 years, most of them won"t be running at all, not to mention being mostly un-skinned as the plastic has fallen away. You can see it now with many cars from the 80s. Warping, breaking cracking and that"s not even 40 years old. Who knows... maybe that"s where the future investments are

There will always be farmers and there will always be a connection with that heritage. With that said, change will occur. How many of us even have a clue how the steam giants operate? Yet, as a kid I remember the threshing bees that featured steam power. Now you see a lot of "M"'s. We'll always be drawn to what we operated or "lusted" after growing up. I think the hobby is safe, but I think there will be fewer of us in the future.

i think they will go up but just a little for several reasons, younger people with ag backgrounds will always like something like these there a reasonable hobby to afford as opposed to boating rving or drag racing ect, there also going to be a littl eharder to find as city kids inhherit their folks old place and the only thing on their mind is scrapping everything they can get gathered up so they can go buy a new china made electronic gadget which may last 2 or 3 years, but there will alwayts be some who recognize the value in preserving the machines and tractors from the early days of mechanized farming for future generations and showing them just how much work was involved in the farming process in the first half of the 20th century , some people are also realizing that the old tractors will far outlast the modern plastic and computer stuff thats being made now

(quoted from post at 18:15:24 10/15/13) What is your opinion on the value of the McCormick letter series tractors years down the road? Will they increase in value or will the demand fall off after the old guys like me (45-70) start to disappear? What is everyone's thoughts?

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It is tough to sell a tractor now a days and make any money. With the baby boomers retiring and dying where do you guys see the buyers coming from? Very few of the younger generation care about old tractors. Hey, in case you haven't heard teh economy is in bad shape! I used to have a bunch of tractors, but after moving a battery around, from one to another, to start them I have sold many off. Tractors will go the way of the Model T and A's. Buy guns and ammo.

I really don't understand where everyone gets the notion that prices will go higher, except from WISHFUL THINKING.

Even if there is a massive purge of these tractors for scrap, you still have to have demand for something in order for it to be valuable. The last dog turd on Earth probably wouldn't be worth very much, for example. It's a fact that demand is going to go down in proportion to the number of farms that have been lost over the past two generations.

Unless there's a HUGE uptick in suburban tractor ownership, that's the trend. That would be unexpected, given that tractors are loud and dirty, and suburban neighborhoods tend to frown on those types of things. Not that most homeowners would have room to store a tractor, let alone do anything useful with it on their property.

(quoted from post at 10:39:03 10/16/13) I really don't understand where everyone gets the notion that prices will go higher, except from WISHFUL THINKING.

Even if there is a massive purge of these tractors for scrap, you still have to have demand for something in order for it to be valuable. The last dog turd on Earth probably wouldn't be worth very much, for example. It's a fact that demand is going to go down in proportion to the number of farms that have been lost over the past two generations.

Unless there's a HUGE uptick in suburban tractor ownership, that's the trend. That would be unexpected, given that tractors are loud and dirty, and suburban neighborhoods tend to frown on those types of things. Not that most homeowners would have room to store a tractor, let alone do anything useful with it on their property.

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Gotta agree. Fewer young people are getting into the hobby. Unless there is a drastic decline in the number of available tractors the price will be stagnate or will drop lower unless there is a dramatic increase in interest. The collectors and showers know what they have as do their families. The kids may or may not want "dad's" collection. The ones that decide to get rid of them when dad is gone (and unfortunately that's going to be sooner rather than later for many collectors) are going to flood an already bloated market. The smaller ones may be kept for a time if the have a belly mower but a big maybe. Suburban life isn't going to have room for many H's or G's.

You should see the difference in my area of MN in resorts. In 71/72 there were a ton of them. Well the parents bringing their kids up back then are gone. And the kids didn't keep coming up. So now the resorts are greatly thinned. One lake had 8 resorts, now there are 2. Amazing what a few years of kids that don't want to fish their summer vacation away will do to an area. Those kids of 71 took their kids to Disneyworld. And their kids are taking the grandkids there today too. Same thing is happening with the show guys. Sure a few of the kids think it's fun but many only go because they have too. Once they are old enough to say no that's it for them.

Rick

If you are buying tractors to make money then you are in the wrong hobby. I am tickled pink if I break even on any of my purchases after getting them fixed up to my standards...buy them because you like them not because they might be worth something 30 years from now.

that means they'll be around them lol, the nearest town has a real population of around 5000, and i can come up with 5 or so model t's and 4 or 5 model A's that i know of, and i dont know a lot of the people anymore ,[my generation has either moved away or died off quite a bit in the last decade or so,

(quoted from post at 13:40:02 10/16/13) If you are buying tractors to make money then you are in the wrong hobby. I am tickled pink if I break even on any of my purchases after getting them fixed up to my standards...buy them because you like them not because they might be worth something 30 years from now.

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That is incorrect. I have a neighbor who does one or two every year. They are the kind with a hand clutch and they bang around on 2 cyls. The last two were '37 Bs. He bought them, restored them, and then sold them on Mecum's auction for $11,000+. He had about half that in them. These tractors were PERFECT and over restored according to some on YT, but that kind of money talks. If they were "factory" restored he would have lost money.

They will only go up !
Even farther as the more time that passes.
Look how the prices for used or available NOS parts has risen just in the last five years.
A bad example would be all the muscle cars we all bought sold & traded when growing up, look at their prices now, even though most are over 30 years old.
A classic will always be a classic whether it's a farm tractor, a car, a pick up,or any example you can think of.
I feel these classics are under priced as they are now when compared to other more modern machinery.
Yes, their prices will continue to rise right along with everything else, such as fuel, electricity, groceries, you name it.
Would I consider them a sound investment.......to a point.......
I have know several collectors, and some that are now passed who had barns full of these classics. Most were purchased for a song back in the 60's, 70's and even 80's. Compared to back then look how scrap prices have risen. These gentlemen all commented on how surprisingly their values had risen so much over the past decades.
I still believe you have to be nuts to put so much money, time & effort into a complete restoration.
But then again, my father & I made quite a bit of side money fixing up old cars & selling them back in the 60's & 70's. It seems there are more & more of these outfits on TV now doing the same thing, but they having to pay more for supplies & labor right along with the rest of us. I don't think that will ever change.

They will go up . . . some. The problem with the Farmall line was that there were just so many of them sold and many are still in service 60 to 70 years after being built and they tended to stay in service long after their competitors were junked. As an example the SA is still working in Tobacco fields and there is nothing better for the job. If Tobacco is still being grown in the next four decades there will be 100-year old Farmalls working. Large numbers available and continued utility decrease collector price. Some of the more rare units will increase just because of relative scarcity such as some of the early number series, ie x00, x30, x40, etc.

I think only the less common ones will go up. The rest have hit their peak. Parts are getting very difficult to find for some models so that in itself discourages collecting. When I started collecting, finding a complete parts tractor was easy in my area--not anymore. Some parts just aren't available anymore and if you can find NOS be prepared to pay excessive prices ($2K for WD-9 pistons & sleeves! Yikes!).

I am considering selling my small collection and anyone that is interested only wants to cherry pick 2 or 3 of them. For the remaining ones, I get offered a few dollars over scrap price.

As for making money by restoring tractors, some guys get lucky once in a while with the right tractor, most do not. If I invested the money I have in my collection 25 years ago I would have more money than my collection is worth today. A tractor collection can eat money and lots of it--oil, tires, batteries, gummed up fuel systems, etc.

This is just my personal opinion:

Their actual dollar values will continue to rise slowly in proportion to other tractors that age and the price of metal.

Their real vaule, adjusted for inflation, has very likely already peaked and will continue to fall in the future. The value of the tires is about half the value of older tractors, the rest of a running tractor is two to maybe four times it's metal salvage value. As tires go bad the high cost of replacing tires will push many old tractors to be scrapped or parted-out in the next ten to thirty years.

Muscle cars are a bad example. Their values have been cut in half over the last 10 years.