Welcome to Moving Iron with Casey Seymour and Greg Peterson. The podcast for anyone and everyone involved and interested in the business of equipment. If you want to understand what trends and market forces are impacting the price of your iron, you've come to the right place. Buckle up, it's time to move some iron. Hello and welcome to Moving Iron Podcast. This edition of Moving Iron Podcast is brought to you by John Deere. I've got Greg Machinery Pete Peterson on to talk about what's happening in the world of equipment. Greg, how you doing today?
I'm doing well, Casey. How are you doing?
Doing good, man. Doing real good. It's been hot and got a little agreement today, but it's going to get right back up there again. So, no rest for the wicked, man.
Summer of '26. Hot, hot, hot, humid, and stuff burning up and wow, it's been quite a summer.
Quite a summer. No, no kidding. Speaking of quite a summer, there's been a lot of auctions going on over the summer. A lot of different things happening. And you watched one happen down in Oklahoma that was kind of feeding some more of this as you look at this 5 to 10 year old stuff. A lot of movement there.
Yeah. A big sale last Thursday. Our friends at Big Iron had an online farm retirement auction for a guy named Jerry Evans in Canton, Oklahoma. So very late model equipment line. Beautiful stuff. And geographically interesting too. Oklahoma. I mean, it's flattened out over the years. It used to be if you drifted that far south, you would maybe see some hard cash auction price break just geographically, but since COVID, really haven't seen it. But just a couple examples on the sale Thursday. Casey saw a 23 model 9RX 640, only 255 hours on it, 3 years old. That brought 508.5, which when you break that down as a whole, so far this year the average on a 9RX 640 at auction is actually up, not a lot, but it's up 2.7%. Average now is running just over 486,000. So I thought that was interesting, 508.5 on that one. Air seeder, a 23 model John Deere N560 60 ft went for 398.25, and that's the highest auction price I've seen on an N560. Of course, haven't seen a ton of them hit the auction market yet, but previous high was I think 380 hard cash. Sprayer, late model sprayer, 24 model Deere 412R, 28 hours, that sold for 427,750, and that's the third highest auction price I've seen on a 412R. As you would expect, it should be right up there with 24 model at 28 hours.
Another pre-def combine. We've talked about these recently, but an 11 model 9670 STS, 2585 engine hours, did 85,000. I think last week we might have talked about one in Lakeville, Minnesota that brought 99 plus over 2500 hours. So, another example here of a strong one. Again, 85k in Oklahoma. And then a swather, a 20 model John Deere W235. Only had 266 hours on it. And that brought 171.25. Third highest auction price ever on a W235. And maybe I thought the strongest price on the wholesale, Casey, was the livestock trailer, a 2009 model Wilson PSDCL 402, 53 ft tandem axle. And that brought 50,250. So 17 years old, over 50k there. So, yeah, that was quite a sale.
That must have been real nice because I don't know if that cost that much when it was brand new. So it's...
No, no, that's what I was wondering too. 17 years ago that is. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, and we know livestock sector's been obviously stronger the past number of years. So just a little reflection of it right there. And also again, you drift into that, hay equipment has been pretty solid. So on the sale, they had a 22 model, a John Deere 560M round baler, 2114 bales through it. That did 44.5, which if you pull back, the average auction price on a Deere 560M round baler this year is up 3.8%. Average is 28,623. Last year it was 27,575. So again, 44.5 for a four-year-old, you know, pretty solid number.
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, kind of we've talked about here so far, if you're looking at segments of what's moving through right now, if you look at this auction segment, this sale is pretty indicative of the equipment that you see selling right now. It's that stuff that's, you know, 5 years old and older. A lot of this stuff here was some 23s and 24s, but 22s, 20s, 2009, those kind of things. You're watching that stuff sell through and you're seeing those numbers come through that would represent what we've been talking about.
Oh, I was just going to say, backing off that, to me it's interesting the number of sales like this that we've seen. I mean this year in particular, 2026, it's kind of started late '25, but I don't know how old Jerry Evans is. I guess I don't know that from our friends, the Big Iron reps, but you know, a retirement sale with lots of late model equipment. He also had a 24 model Cat 920 excavator with 70 hours on it. Sold for 201,000. So, I mean, I've been doing this again a long time, almost 37 years, but you just didn't really used to see retirement sales with this level of big late model stuff across the board. And so much of it, it used to be estate sales. If you know, unfortunately, if someone passed and was an aggressive growing operation, then you'd see it. But this is commonplace now. Farmers with this level of late model equipment and tons of sales like this. And ironically, the timing, I don't know if ironic is the right word, but in a market that's tightening with used inventories across the board, this is exactly, you know, the kind of stuff with, you know, sales of new, like we keep talking about, sales of new have been so pinched for two, three or plus years that here comes Jerry's three-year-old 9RX 640 with 255 hours and his three-year-old N560 60 ft air seeder. So, yeah, someone paid 398.25, highest auction price ever, but what's a new air seeder cost? So, yeah, I just find it interesting the number of sales like this that we've seen.
Yep. For sure. And that's also setting the tone for price, right, with these sales that we've seen coming through with the lack of the huge dealer consignment sales, the just the big overwhelming, just, you know, every auction company has one or two big consignment sales every year. Typically one in the spring, typically one in the fall, if not one in the fall for sure. As to what's going on there, you haven't seen those numbers like that. Now, when you do see those, they do have quite a bit of equipment come through them, but I think one of the saving graces with the current state of the equipment space, what that has really been helping out drive price, those kind of things, it's the number of, you know, it's a bad scenario there, but there's some silver lining in that that's keeping up the price of equipment higher than I've seen it maintain itself in a downturn like this and softening like this. Even though we've hit bottom and we're kind of, you know, chugging along there. My biggest fear is you start watching some of this one and two-year-old stuff come into play. Where does that, how does that affect the marketplace when that starts coming through? I'm not sitting here saying that I think there's going to be a huge amount of dealer consignments are going to go sell 40 combines in one day or anything like that. I'm not saying that at all. But if you start seeing some of that kind of trickle through these Big Iron sales, these Merritt sales, these, you know, Alex Curles, those kind of things like that, we start watching those things work their way through. What's that do to the marketplace? And I'm thinking from a strategy, from a dealership strategy, my opinion would be if I could get a few of these combines to sell on Jerry Evans' combine sale and kind of sprinkle those in there a little bit, maybe I get a little bit more than what I would have gotten. Even though they say, hey, you know, it's ABC equipment or whatever it might be, instead of having one giant, you know, sale that you have all your own one thing, spread that stuff out three, four pieces at a time across some of these sales like this and you might see a better return than what you would see otherwise.
Well, we're going to have a great example of what you just talked about, Casey. So, we're recording this on, what is today? Tuesday. I'm old. I lose track.
So, it's the fourth. So on Thursday, I think our friends at Merritt are having a sale for our dealer friends at AgPro. Now, of course, AgPro very unique with their geographic footprint up into the upper, you know, the Midwest in Ohio, but then also in the Southeast. Now, this particular sale, I think they're labeling it their pre-harvest sale. No reserve. Check out merrittauctions.com. I know I just did a little social media thing for it and I'm trying to remember. I think nine tractors, eight of them are from Ohio. They're Ohio locations and a number of combines again mostly all from Ohio. And then but a good mix right down through the line and kind of sprinkling like you say, not like what we saw two years ago in '24 where these dealer wholesale auctions, oh, we saw lots, high volume of items per sale. So this Merritt sale is sort of just like you said. Yeah, not a bad time to sprinkle some in. And of course George and the folks at Merritt do a great job marketing. So yeah, I think they'll have a solid sale Thursday. But again, check it out, folks. merrittauctions.com. You can follow along and, you know, make your own assessments of the market and look for opportunities. Historically, you know, from my chair doing what I do, this time of year has been a great time to be a buyer. Now we have noted since the middle of June this uptick in auction, hard cash auction pricing, but you know, every sale still has its bargains. That's a truth that will always be. But I think probably the way you looked at it, Casey, and the way my smart auction friends look at it is you have your number on the sale and you just, what we've been seeing lately is the number is coming out ahead of the estimate. And you know, there might be one or two or three items that sell a little light through the sale, but overall again like on the sale we talked about Thursday in Oklahoma there, you know, 398.25 on that 60 ft air seeder, 3 years old, that went almost 20k over anything that I've seen. So, it's an interesting time.
Yeah, for sure. And there's going to continue to be this thing as you watch how this plays out. Okay, so they're coming up here. This is typically this order writing period for combines right now. Especially on the Deere side. I think I'm pretty sure Case is in a similar, CNH is in a similar mix of that time frame as well. But looking at the number of combines that are going to get ordered new compared to the number of used pieces that come in, you're going to, it's going to be off. It's going to be down from what it was the year before, which is great because it needs to be. And as you watch things push their way through, I'm not at all going to sit here and tell you that I think there's going to be a rush on price. Even if we start seeing some crazy things happen with commodity prices as far as prices going up and those kind of things. What I think we're going to see is I feel like we're stabilizing the marketplace into a, like I've talked about, kind of this new normal thing, like we're stabilizing the marketplace into a more friendly, you know, buyer to inventory ratio.
More balanced. Yeah. Now, there's a lot of '23 stuff, a lot of '22 stuff, a lot of '21 stuff that needs to get, you know, moved to a different home, and kind of pushed its way through to make that stabilize. But once you start, once that stabilizes and you get those things kind of squared away and you start looking at '24, '25, '26 model stuff coming in, those numbers are so much smaller than we've seen in the past that I think it puts out there an even kilter. You start looking at the amount of equipment that's available for sale and the number of customers to sell because the more conversations I'm having with guys and it's, I mean, a lot of it right now is driven by the economy, there's no doubt about that. I'm not going to try to sugarcoat that this is some kind of big switch in thinking, but even when things turn around, I take a hard look at, I'm going to use tractors for example, right? When I'm looking at tractors right now, I think that's one thing someone can look at and say, do I need to trade my tractor every year, every two, every three year? Like, how long do I need to keep my tractors before I really only need to trade them in? The wild card in my opinion on that is this, you know, balers, self-propelled forage harvesters, pull-type forage harvesters, sprayers, combines, those kind of things where there's a lot of moving parts, a lot of different systems that are functioning at the same time. And when those repair bills come around on those particular machines, they're typically way, they're significantly higher. So, how do I manage that risk comparatively to long-term, you know, budgeting of repairs and those kind of things? Like, how does that start fitting into what I'm doing? And I keep coming back to tractors get longer and maybe some of your harvest equipment gets a little longer, maybe your planting equipment gets a little longer. I think planters, in my opinion, I'm watching the planter market right now and I see more and more planters getting out there running longer and longer and just being, you know, fixing stuff as they need to be fixed, those kind of things. Upgrade kits are starting to come into the conversation a lot more on those particular machines. So as you watch this transformation, which I think is happening now because of the economy, I think it sticks around after things turn back around and things push forward, that changes the dynamics of used equipment and how things get sold dramatically. You know what I mean? So if you start looking at, hey, we're going to go out and sell these one-year-old machines to these bigger guys and stuff starts coming through. I think what we see happening right now is setting the table for a really healthy used equipment space two, three years down the road.
Couldn't agree more, Casey. You're on it. In fact, you know, doing what I do, I look for data confirmation for trends up or down. But also the people component. So, for example, end of last week, I was in Western Kentucky for 3 days. I was down to speak at an event called the Wave a Day. It's four counties in western Kentucky, very, very heavy ag counties, and they pull together to push forward their economic development. Led by Dr. Tony Brandon, the former head of Murray State Ag Department. Everyone knows Tony, he's a great dude. So much fun. So, I'm hanging out there for two, three days. One thing, the corn is unbelievable in western, I mean, it was amazing and the Kentucky farmers down there were saying, Pete, this is the best we've ever seen it. So there's that, but so many conversations with farmers along the lines you talked about, like, you know what, this used market is structurally really changing because the guys that were buying all the new stuff on the multi-unit deals, you know, that's kind of evaporated. So the people down the chain that were getting that slotting in for that, whatever the two, three-year-old, then the next slot, six, seven-year-old, you know, the whole thing is adjusting on the fly and it is a more healthy balanced thing that we're going towards. The one X factor that I keep coming back to is farmers verbalizing is wherever I go online or been traveling a ton, we'll say, Pete, we're just rolling different now. We're going to run our used longer. The dollars are so high. And this manifested itself in one young Kentucky farmer who was at the meeting last Friday morning. His name was Quint Pottinger. People maybe have heard about him. He's the first Kentucky farmer to plant his whole crop autonomously and he's a young guy. So he got up and just shared his truth and what he's done. I think, I don't know if Quint's dad passed away and he was trying, you know, he's getting into the family farm, so the numbers involved huge and he and his wife were looking like the math is not really mathing here. So they thought about it. They looked at all kinds of different things and what they wound up doing was selling a ton of their equipment. They sold $400,000 worth of stuff off the farm and then sold his 6430 Deere tractor, bought like a, was a one of those 30M series 130 horse tractor and he's got it rigged up behind an eight-row planter. Eight-row planter behind it. Planting autonomously, not the bigger, bigger, bigger, faster, faster, faster, high speed. He's going smaller and slower. And he's not necessarily doing it because it's hard to find help. He's doing it for the math reasons and is saying that as we're a young couple and the debt load we were servicing equipment-wise, it just wasn't making sense and that is what I'm sensing and that's why we see more of these auctions like the one we were talking about with all this, it's kind of farmer downsizing. You might call it a retirement sale or you might just be calling it downsizing. So the key question for me is whenever corn and beans do find a higher, stronger price point, do farmers go back to buying the level of new equipment they did before because what they're telling me is it's too expensive and it's not working and so then they still got to farm their acres. So that drives them into the used market which happens to be tightening, right, is they're all thinking the same thing and that's why, going back to the data, that's why you maybe see that N560 sell 18,250 over the previous high. It's a fascinating mix we got going right now.
Yeah, we've had plenty of conversations with folks that have been, you know, I've got, I'm just throwing them, I've got four or five tractors now. And you know, the two generations before me farmed the same amount of ground with two smaller tractors by the way that were not nearly as big as these ones. So there's a lot of dynamics changing right now and it's coming back down to what makes sense dollar, like what's the sense, dollars and cents, right? That makes sense, right? I think that's the conversation you're seeing people have and it's getting to be a hard and fast look at, I got a banker that wants money. I got to plant my crops. I need all the seed, fertilizer, all the inputs associated with that. Diesel prices aren't changing anytime soon, right? And if not, they're going to get more expensive as things with, you know, geopolitically speaking as things move along. So, there's a lot of stuff on this equipment side of his business where people are taking a hard look at this saying, how's my payment structure going to be played out? What's that going to look like? And then, how do I service that moving through? And you're seeing a lot of conversations like this where I'm going to downsize a tractor or two. I'm going to downsize a combine or two. I'm going to downsize. You know, you're seeing some of that take place where, you know, the autonomous thing, you don't really have, you know, it's smaller eight-row stuff like that, but you can plant 24/7 365. You just got to keep it full. You know what I mean? That's...
You talked about a young farmer, Quint was talking about, and what I could sense, Casey, in the room of farmers, there was a collective lean in to what this dude was saying. Now, it was interesting. He said, of course, we live in a social media world, and he said 90 plus percent of the blowback he gets is from young farmers 18 to 28 years old. He said, and Quint was very professional. He had a great talk. In fact, I told him, I said, I got to hook you up with Clinton Griffith and Ty Morgan because more people need to hear your experience. And they might not agree with it, but he said young farmers, and he was saying, well, it's like, hey, don't take away my tractor time. That was my vision of being a farmer is, you know, behind the wheel of the combine and the tractor. And here's a young guy saying, no, I think the way to do it is just to send my tractor out there robotically and just plant 24/7, real slow motion eight-row planter. And he tied it back to Ag Commissioner Earl Butz, of course, back in I think the early '70s with the mission telling the American farmers like, hey, we got to feed the world. Which is, you know, was a wonderful message and American farmer responded. Everyone got bigger, bigger, bigger, faster, faster, faster. Now here's a dude who's doing the opposite. He's getting smaller and slower. But it goes back to what my dad taught me. I mean, take a pen and a napkin and start figuring your numbers. Income, expenses. If it don't work on the napkin, it don't work. If it works on the napkin, then you got something to deal with. So, but again, to me, the question is, it's tax policy really. So, all these sales, these auctions, like I just said it, it's like I've never seen so many retirement sales with farmers having one, two, three, four-year-old beautiful low-hour equipment. Now, I don't know if we can quantify the extent to which a lot of that was purchased for tax purposes. I mean, farmers are hammered on taxes. I mean, more than anybody. So equipment is a way to minimize that. And our data has screamed it for a quarter century. November, December auction prices are higher. They just are. So yeah, all this is all wrapped together in this mix. And the longer it stretches out, it just gives collectively the space more time to kind of chew on things. It's kind of what we're seeing. So...
Yep. Right on. Yep. Things are changing. It's like the old Bob Dylan song, things are changing. So, you know, you keep plugging through and then you have to adapt to what's going on around you and...
Exactly. Might move forward. But you're right, Casey, that the new normal you talk about is, I think that's settling in and I sense farmers are starting to kind of absorb that, you know, that and within that is opportunity. Now, this young guy in Kentucky, that's one take on the opportunity, but all kinds of different opportunities in there. So, I guess that's always been the truth in agriculture. Difficult, challenging times, but also exciting times to find your way forward.
Right on. For sure. All right, Greg. Good place to stop. Folks want to have you come out and talk at their event or have you come and video their auction. What's the best way for you to do that?
Yeah, just hit our website, machinerypete.com. Our contact info is right on the bottom, folks. Or Twitter or Facebook, shoot me a note. Sometimes it's hard for me to catch all the notes that come through on Facebook. Thank you so much everybody for sending those through. But yeah, just our office and then they get word to me.
And yeah, I think I mentioned it. We do have one auction I should highlight. Casey, you get a kick out of it. We're going to film it August 27th in Alto, Illinois. A sale by Merit Auctions. Again, shout out to Merit. The sale is a retirement sale for Donald Shorty Peterson. And Don Shorty is 104 years young. So I can't wait to get high-def cameras talking to Shorty about how he started farming. And there's a ton of GPS equipment on this auction. So it's like, Shorty, tell me about that. Can't wait. It's going to be great fun.
Yeah, that'll be a good one. It'll be a good one. Well, Greg, appreciate you being on the podcast. We'll catch you again next week.
Sounds great, Casey. Have a good one.
All right. Thanks.
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All right, welcome back to Moving Iron Podcast. I got Aaron Fentel back on to talk about what's happening in the world of equipment. Aaron, how you doing today?
It's been a minute, man. How you been?
It's uh well, it's been a summer. Ironically enough, I think it's 51 degrees outside right now, but it was 109 on Sunday. So, good times.
This weather pattern right now is very odd because like today I think today's high is 75.
Yeah, it was whatever it was, 109 like you talked about on Sunday, and then it's supposed to be like 105 on Saturday again. So I mean it's just like we get this...
It's been, I feel like this is one of the hottest summers we've had out here in quite a while. I mean, it's been really, really warm.
I've been out here 20 years and it feels like the most 10 days. For sure.
For sure. Yeah. It kind of started and it was supposed to only last about a week and here we are, you know, 6 weeks later and it's been 95 to 105 for the last, you know, 6 weeks. So, which there's guys up in the Dakotas that have had that, but it's been like 115 for six weeks. It seems like in that area, you know. And then you got your odd little pocket of Billings that's always hotter than us for some reason. So...
There it is. No, summer's been good. Things are still moving.
Fairly decent. Considering, you know, customer interest is, I would say, in all reality better than I expected for the entire year. You know, from January to now, to the beginning of August here, it's probably double what I expected. And you know, by saying that, just like everybody else, no, it's not the $500, $700,000 stuff that's flying out of here. And nothing is flying out of here, but you know, you're still, you stay in that sub-three, and you know, it's pretty steady. And ironically enough, over five has been, of course, over five essentially is one-year-old lowered. You know, that stuff is its very own little upper echelon. That stuff is getting a decent amount of traction there for the year. At least in what I've seen, that 300 to 500 in your inventory level is the kicker. That is where it's really hard to accomplish a lot of things.
