Over four years since the last post and being new to antique tractor shows I think prices are still dropping especially for the expensive to haul sizes. Last year the daughter (19 at the time) when with me to look at a 1966 Ford 3000 and asked me to buy it for her and teach her how to drive it. It got too nice for the daily rough so I picked up a nice but rusty 1980 3600 to do the dirty work since the Ford 711 one arm loader stays on the 1966 full time.
At 67 I took the 1966 for my first ever antique tractor event and was one of the younger in the group. There were some younger like my daughter but they were associated with the older guys for the most part.
Monday morning I went and looked at a non running 1948 Model B Allis Chalmers but with nice paint and four new tires and was generally a tight tractor with a recently used Woods Rotary Mower model 59 AC that came with the owner's manual dated 1964 revision that showed its age.
We got the engine on the bench last night. While it was not worn out (no ring grove) the O rings on sleeve #1 and #4 had failed so the guy ran it with coolant in the crankcase and had added Liquid Glass stop leak. Since it is a nice tractor we are having the crank shaft checked out at the machine shop and if a polishing or taking it down 0.010 will make it solid as new we plan to run with a full rebuild kit
We have $1000 to play with to come out with hopefully under the $2000 total cost. The $800 purchase price was haggle free because that was the price out of the seller's mouth and I wanted the tractor as stated below.
No that is not a good deal in today's declining antique tractor prices. With it looks OK for shows today and having hydraulics makes it about the same as the one that I played on at the age of 3-4 and was driving at the age of 5 while dad was nearby picking corn by hand. He got tired of getting on and off to pull up every little bit.
Around here there are guys with barns full of fully restored very old iron as part of their retirement plan. There are some unhappy wife's I am told. One dealer told me the tractors are selling at below just the parts cost to fully restore them with winter after winter labor just gone for good. We are way upside down on the 1966 Ford 3000 but if the daughter wants to keep it it should be usable for another 50 years perhaps.
The 1948 Model B Allis Chambers is to serve as a backup mower and be something easy for me to trailer if I want to do shows after the kids have moved away from home.
I am open to flipping a few from time to time if the right deal pops up but not to hold as an investment. It is not my cup of tea but parting out these old tractors looks to have a profit potential.
The tractors are a bit like the Harley business with more used ones coming onto the market faster than the market will absorb. As the family farm becomes a thing of the past so will our old tractors I guess. With new and used parts cost going up and selling prices going down there is going to be a painful middle for some of us it seems. I can see at some point the low prices of old farm machinery creating a new interest in old iron but then perhaps 50% of the CUTS out there today will be on the market in the next 15-20 years. With wages declining cash buyers may be hard for sellers to find in coming years so maybe the credit card will become the new cash buyers.
View attachment 1948 Model B Allis Chambers.jpg
