Are Antique Tractor Collectors a Dying Breed?

[deerseeker001]

Tractors of today aren't build like they were in the past.

 

[Soundguy]

fo sho

 

[whistlepig]

Antique tractor shows are pretty common here. Most of them around September. The local high school has a "Drive your tractor to school" day every year. It makes the headlines of our Liberty, Indiana newspaper every year. We need this excitement.

 

[farmgirl19]

The younger generation did not grow up growing their crops and raising their livestock. Most are from a "throw away" mindset, so are not going to be smitten by old iron. Just look how many people do not know the basics of how a combustion engine works.

I fear a lot of the old stuff will be sold off for scrap metal, or thrown in a pit, at some point in the future. Very sad.

 

[murphy1244]

The younger generation did not grow up growing their crops and raising their livestock. Most are from a "throw away" mindset, so are not going to be smitten by old iron. Just look how many people do not know the basics of how a combustion engine works.

I fear a lot of the old stuff will be sold off for scrap metal, or thrown in a pit, at some point in the future. Very sad.

Or you good just send your Avery my way. and the JD too.

 

[ultrarunner]

I think so...

40 years ago, I was the youngest member of the Model A Club and today... I'm still the youngest in the local chapter.

When someone passes... it's rare that the car will stay in the family... totally different from back in the 70's when they were just as likely to be handed down to the next generation.

I'm in California and the mindset is to condemn just about anything with an old internal combustion engine...

We had a club meet last August and a family was strolling by... the two kids were in awe and really excited seeing cars with Rumbleseats and one of the Speedsters and then I heard Mom say these old cars started global warming because they were made when people didn't care about the environment... the interest of the kids changed just like that.

Now... when I'm in Austria... old tractors are the end all... they get gatherings of over a 1000 tractors and everyone roads them to the show... it's like going back 30 or 40 years and everyone is restoring Grandpa's tractor.

The same can be said for those the have a lathe, mill or welder in the garage... just not much of that going on here in the city anymore.

 

[super55]

I personally love the old the tractors. To me they are iconic back when the US actually produced something. I am really a big fan of the late 40's through early 60's tractors and implements. It was at an age when the family farm of a hundred acres or so was the norm. These tractors and implements are perfect for hobby farming and if you have any mechanical skills are pretty easy to maintain. I don't have the farm yet but I am slowly acquiring all the implements so when I do I won't have to buy new. In the meantime I'll have fun restoring them not to a show condition but to a functional condition.

The creativeness to make some of these old implements work amazes me. I have an old JD/VB grain drill and it's a trip lever drop. Pulling the string to lift the coulters always amazes me the number of gears and cogs to make it work.

I'm sure some people probably think I'm weird for finding fascination in something like this but to me I find it weird how some people can sit inside on a sunny fall day and watch football. Me I'd rather be on my old tractors or working on them while listening to the game on the radio.

 

[TomSeller]

I'm sure some people probably think I'm weird for finding fascination in something like this but to me I find it weird how some people can sit inside on a sunny fall day and watch football. Me I'd rather be on my old tractors or working on them while listening to the game on the radio.

BRAVO !!!! I am the same way. I can't sit still for 4 or 5 hours and watch a game unless it is the playoffs. I have to keep moving, or stop drinking coffee, one or the other.

 

[DJ54]

They seem to be doing well here too. Still quite a few family farms going here, and carrying on the family tradition. And most have some older models, if not the original tractors Grandpa farmed with.

I still have 12, that I could restore, and show. I still use 4 of them for gin jobs, just to make them earn their keep. Really haven't shown since '88. We used to have plowing days, and really enjoyed that. With the oncoming of no-till farming, it's not nearly as common as it was. They are now starting to get some interest in the plowing days now, but seems it tough to set a date on a weekend, and have the weather cooperate.

 

[BKBoiss]

There are a few of us. I'm 25 by brother a bit older and we drag home a few gems every summer, sometimes with my 79 ford 350, I love that old girl painted her up built a deck and my own custom 4 way fifth wheel on it when I was 17. We've got 9 jonny poppers, an 1800 Oliver, 1950 cockshutt, wd4 or 6 can't remember what that one is and they all run except the last one it's still stuck. Couple other old things around as well. That being said I don't exactly fit in with the rest of my generation, I've been married to a wonderful woman for 6 years with a 3 year old and a 1 1/2 year, owned my own place at 18, when the household appliances break down I usually fix them if I can find parts and so on and so forth. It really upsets me when I see the lazy self entitlement attitude of young people today there is no sense of pride in a job well done and no work ethic, it's a live to make yourself happy world instead of trying to help those around you. I better stop my rant now but yes some of us are still out here, my little fella HAS to try out every tractor at every auction I take him to.