KINGMAN, Alta. – Post-auction shock wasn’t a problem for Pat and Harvey Adamson the day after their farm auction
as buyers returned to the yard to pick up augers, tractors and fence posts.
“It was nice,” said Pat.
The couple’s three sons and their families came back to the farm for a week, digging through granaries for long forgotten treasures, polishing tractors, washing trucks and organizing four generations of farm equipment for the sale.
“We’ve got 100 years of stuff here. Some of it hasn’t seen the light of day for 75 years,” son Bryce said before the sale as he examined a trailer of antique stoves, cast iron tractor seats and collectibles dug out of the grass and the back of the Quonset.
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“It’s my job to get it to the light of day.”
Pat said preparing equipment for the spring auction sale was a family affair.
“We were happy we were able to do it together. This was a positive thing.”
Optimism has prevailed over most of the farm auctions this spring, said Neil Fraser of Fraser Auctions in Brandon.
“We haven’t seen a poor sale yet.”
Fraser estimated prices are 15 percent higher than last year, especially on good used seeding equipment. Even combines are fetching strong prices early in the season, he said.
“There’s optimism that the crop is going to be good this year,” said Fraser, who was surprised at the prices paid for some equipment.
A John Deere 4640 2WD tractor from the 1980s recently sold for $30,000, more than it cost new 25 years earlier.
“We haven’t seen a price like that since 1992,” he said.
Even small items stacked on old hay wagons, often kindly referred to as junk, have sold well.
Some buyers don’t like to leave a sale empty handed and can often find something they want on the wagon, Fraser said.
“There’s always an interest in the rack items,” he added.
“Most people are in very good spirits and are very optimistic.”
Myles Taylor, auction co-ordinator with Hodgins Auctioneers in Melfort, Sask., has watched as optimism for the upcoming seeding season has pushed prices for grain equipment higher as well.
Air drills and four-wheel drive tractors, tandem grain trucks, harrow packer bars and other seeding equipment are selling briskly.
Some tandem grain trucks sell higher than the new price, he said.
“It’s supply and demand.
It’s hard to find a new tractor and air drill,” said Taylor, who added 95 percent of the sales have generated a higher than estimated total for the sale.
“Prices have been very strong.”
Taylor said an antique threshing machine in nice shape recently sold for $3,000. Last year it may have fetched
$100 to $200.
“Overall, the auction season is going very well and it’s just started.”
