SEE WHAT'S NEW IN USED

Our friends at agriculture.com have developed a fun new flash game called Steer Your Deere. You can virtually drive a John Deere 8R series traffic around an obstacle course of all sorts of items, and even pick up ActiveCommand (ACS) as a steering power up along the way!

How good are you at steering? It may take you a few rounds to get good, and the game can get pretty addictive.  Jeff Caldwell, agriculture.com’s community manager has a fun thread up on Machinery Talk about who has received the most points so far – looks like $14,120 is the current record!

We had the pleasure of meeting Dale Dobson, Safety Administrator for the Kentucky Department of Agriculture during our visit to the 2010 Kentucky State Fair.

We had the pleasure of catching up with Sam Lawson, President of Hartland Equipment, a 4 location John Deere dealership that is spread out throughout Kentucky. It was great speaking to Sam – he had some wonderful stories to share about the hardworking farmers that make us proud to be John Deere Green. One of our favorite stories was about a farmer that came back in to buy a tractor this year from a promise he made back in 1982!

Watch more on what Sam has to say here:

Sold for $6,000 on 8/14/10 auction in Le Roy, MN

I’ve only seen it happen a couple times.

What’s that? An auction crowd breaking in spontaneous applause when the gavel falls after an item sells on an auction. It happened last Saturday (August 14, 2010) on a farm collector auction in the southeast Minnesota community of Le Roy. Sweeney Auction Service of Waukon, IA had the sale, which featured an extensive line of antique tractors and equipment. I was on hand shooting video of the auction for our “Machinery Pete” Youtube channel.

What item did the auction crowd clap for?

Just like the song goes as our title suggests, we are excited to be heading to the Kentucky State Fair this Tuesday, August 24, 2010.  The state fair attracts more that 600,000 (!) people and has has been in existence since 1816!

Nice used tractors fetching high prices at auction

Ok, this is getting very interesting.

What? The development I’m watching play out in the used farm equipment auction market this summer. It’s becoming apparent to me as the sale price data streams into our office daily, that an increasing premium is being paid for the really nice condition used tractors 7-20 years old.

Want an example? Thought you would. I’ve got a couple for you. First let’s peek in on a super nice farm retirement auction July 31, 2010 in east-central Nebraska, near the town of Rising Sun. Sold that day on the well-attended auction was a 1996 model JD 8400 MFWD tractor in 3,400 hours.

The Year was 1837.  It came to John Deere’s attention that the farmers of the area were having some major problems with their old cast-iron plows in the thick, rich soil of the Midwest.  John made his first self-cleaning plow out of steel from an old saw.  It worked like a charm and John Deere, being the innovator that he was, did something quite unusual at that time.  John started making his new plows before he ever got any requests for them.  This was unusual in that blacksmiths made items only on demand for their customers.

$31,000: The Highest Auction Price Machinery Pete has seen on a JD 4020

1,280 John Deere 4020 tractors.

That’s how many I’ve seen sold at auction over the last 14 years. That’s how many 4020 sale prices we’ve got in our “auction results” database at Machinerypete.com. I’m sure the number is well over 2,000 4020’s sold in my 21 years of tracking auction sale prices.

The nicest one I’ve run across? Hmm, don’t have to think about that too hard. Would have to be the 1972 4020 with 2,499 one-owner hours sold on a farm auction November 21, 2007 in northwest Ohio.

We’d like to thank you all so much for such a great turnout for the John Deere Ultimate Fan Photo Contest – a total of 805 of you went out to vote!

Without further ado, the winner with 345 votes (43% of the vote!) – Amanda Rae Sowa!

Amanda, step right up and claim your badge and bragging rights for the Ultimate John Deere Fan Photo Contest!

A big round of thanks to everyone that entered the contest and a special thank you to the finalists, and thanks again to all that voted to make this such a fun contest!