Home / News / Business news / Bringing big bucks: 10- to 20-year-old tractors

Bringing big bucks: 10- to 20-year-old tractors

GREG PETERSON 09/30/2010 @ 10:26am Greg Peterson writes "Machinery Pete" column for Successful Farming magazine and appears on the Machinery Show on RFD-TV, talking about trends in the used equipment market

Take a look at this CaseIH 7120 tractor.

A 1992 model 7120, two-wheel drive, with 1,813 hours, sold on a nice farm auction yesterday (Sept. 29th) in southwest Ohio for $45,000. That makes it the fourth highest auction sale price I've seen over the last ten years on two-wheel drive CaseIH 7120s.

Pete's auction prices on CaseIH 7120 tractors

Just more proof of a trend I've seen picking up speed and momentum since July, very nice condition tractors 10-20 years have gone up in value significantly and are fetching premium dollars on farm auctions.

Need visual proof?

Ok, here's a Youtube video I posted last weekend, highlights from a nice farm estate auction Saturday (Sept. 25th) in southeast Minnesota. The second item featured in the video is a 1995 Ford-NH 8770 MFWD tractor with 1,959 hours. The price it sells for ties the highest auction sale price I've seen on a Ford-NH 8770 in the last 13 years.

Pete's auction prices on Ford-NH 8770 tractors

I think this trend is going to continue right through the end of 2010 on into 2011.

Back on September 11th, on a super farm auction in northwest Illinois, a 2000 model JD 8410 MFWD tractor with just 584 hours sold for $136,000. That was $23,000 more than I'd ever seen a JD 8410 tractor sell for at auction. In fact, it was $17,400 more than I've ever seen a 8410 priced at for sale on a dealer's lot.

How do I know that? I checked our www.Machinerypete.com web site's "Calculator" pricing tool. We've compiled 301 dealer advertised sale prices on JD 8410 tractors over the years. The highest advertised price? $118,600 all the way back in 2003 when 8410's were still very new.Oh, and guess how long it took this JD 8410 to sell for $136,000 on the September 11th auction in northwest Illinois? Less than two minutes. Wow.