Old Machinery

With the price of scrap the last 5-6 years is there much old unused abandoned machinery sitting in the fence rows by anyone? I walked thru the woods today up to the neighbors and found some. He has a couple of items I would like to have so have to go talk with him.

Down the road is a farmstead that is overrun with weeds. The old man is in the home and has Alzheimers and made the son promise that nothing would be sold while he was still alive. There it all sits rusting away. There's a nice Farmall SMTA sitting there that makes me weak every time I go by.

I'm sure the scrappers will end up with most of it.

You are right! Next generation just wants the quick money!!

I would definitely talk to the son if there is something there that I wanted. Let him know and when the time comes he just may remember. People have short memories, my neighbor had an older truck that I told him I wanted about a year ago. It disappeared the other day. I would kick his axx but then I would have to shine my shoes.

(quoted from post at 20:15:50 11/26/12) You are right! Next generation just wants the quick money!!

Click to expand...

Yup, that's all we are. Greedy little money grubbers just waiting for the folks to die so we can send everything they worked their entire lives for to the scrap yard for $200 a ton.

How about, the equipment has been sitting outside rotting into the ground for the last 20-odd years, and it's not worth anything to anyone as equipment?

What would you have someone like me do, leave it to rot into the ground? The next owner of the property is just going to just have it all hauled off to the scrapper anyway.

Should I give it away to someone who's just going to truck it off to the scrappers themselves?

How about, us kids have livelihoods of our own, and families to take care of, and we don't have time to play pretend machinery dealer for months and months while we try to get top dollar for the equipment? There's something to be said for getting the estate handled quickly.

Maybe we should pay an auctioneer 13% to sell it to a bunch of scrappers for a fraction of what it's worth at the scrapyard?

I"ve seen three farm equipment junkyards fall victim of encroaching real estate development on the outskirts of some local towns. The first one to go was forced by the city and county. The owner was attacked by the Illinois EPA who claimed it was an environmental hazard due to soil contamination. After the equipment left, they didn"t do any remediation or soil removal. Looks just like it did 20 years ago minus equipment. The other two I don"t know the details of but some collectors ended up with some of it before it was scrapped. The third place just moved all of their equipment onto rural property where they could continue the business. If the equipment doesn"t contain any fluids I don"t see where rusting metal is of concern to the EPA. I know rodents will take up residency, but that can be dealt with as the owner who just relocated his equipment has addressed that issue.

(quoted from post at 08:07:05 11/27/12)

(quoted from post at 20:15:50 11/26/12) You are right! Next generation just wants the quick money!!

Click to expand...

Yup, that's all we are. Greedy little money grubbers just waiting for the folks to die so we can send everything they worked their entire lives for to the scrap yard for $200 a ton.

How about, the equipment has been sitting outside rotting into the ground for the last 20-odd years, and it's not worth anything to anyone as equipment?

What would you have someone like me do, leave it to rot into the ground? The next owner of the property is just going to just have it all hauled off to the scrapper anyway.

Should I give it away to someone who's just going to truck it off to the scrappers themselves?

How about, us kids have livelihoods of our own, and families to take care of, and we don't have time to play pretend machinery dealer for months and months while we try to get top dollar for the equipment? There's something to be said for getting the estate handled quickly.

Maybe we should pay an auctioneer 13% to sell it to a bunch of scrappers for a fraction of what it's worth at the scrapyard?

Click to expand...

I know of a situation where 2 brothers stand to own 200 acres, a 1955 Chevy, a 1928 stake bed truck and a few old rusty pieces of equipment. One is only interested in the 55. The other would like the land. I know the rusty old equipment is going to go to scrap for a quick buck. Thier kids have no interest in the land or anything else.

So when the time comes they will own it. I think the one will give his brother the land to get the 55. But they are both in their 60's so whats to become of everything when they die? You think their kids are going to want to pay taxes on land they don't want or need? Are they supposed to maintain the house and buildings too?

Most of you collectors don't want to pay for anything anyway and are always shopping for a bargain or freebie. So if I have an old plow that I can get 200 bucks a ton for and you want to pay me less than that I'm supposed to take the lass and smile? I'm not a collector. Have no interest in collecting. I'm restarting the family farm and have older stuff to keep the cost down. That's why I'm here. I'm not here to get bent over on something I may sell. You want my old Super 68 NH baler? I'll sell it to you but only for what I'd get for it as scrap. I really would rather see it used/restore than crushed but I want a fair price too. If that fair price comes from a scrapper so be it. You can bet that when my MIL passes I will put up an ad for the FIL's old mechanical lift one bottom plow. It it don't sell in a couple of weeks.........


Rick

I *AM* a collector, but I do understand that you can't save everything, not everything is worth saving, and people are free to do with their own personal property as they choose.

On the edge of my town there was a guy with a whole yard full of farm and const. goodies. I tried to buy a crawler from him but he set his dogs on me. The Twp. got after him so he put up one of those cheap quonsets and housed what he could. Well, last fall he finally fell ill. the Twp. pushed the clean up thing again. His "family" publcly thanked the "kind" local scrap yard for helping them clean up. What a crock! The crooked b@st@rds at the scrap yard taking it all for free. It was clearly very auctionable stuff.

i dont sell a darn thing to a scraper. im lucky if i get 2-3 p u loads of scrap out a yr. and it is all true scrap. i dont even like going to scrapyards anymore because it makes me sick to see what some idiot threw away just for a quick buck.