During the Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa, Van Wall Equipment auctioned off 137 items over 2 days in conjunction with Big Iron and Sullivan Auctioneers.

I spoke with Big Iron co-founder Mark Stock during the show. The auction — like all run by Big Iron and Sullivan Auctioneers — was absolute, meaning there’s no reserves and everything has to sell

The auction attracted buyers at the show as well as worldwide.

“There are people here bidding on their phones, but there's guys and gals in Texas and Oregon and Washington and Pennsylvania. Quite a few people bidding in Georgia right now, plus all the Midwest states. A lot of Illinois and Iowa bidders, they buy from all over. And BigIron and Sullivan's have been pretty well respected brand names and from Canada to Mexico and even beyond. We've registered several people from Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil here, and whether they get something bought, we don't know, but they've been bidding.”

According to Stifel’s September Used Equipment Update, auction pricing trends for used equipment continued to face pressure in July given tough comps due to an overall tight equipment market last year related to supply chain challenges. However, Brian Brophy, associate vice president of Stifel, notes asking prices for used equipment are more mixed as some categories continue to see pricing growth and others have started to follow auction pricing declines.

Stock says low commodity prices have pushed used equipment pricing down.

“The price of good quality equipment is driven by two things, commodity prices and supply. Supply is not an issue right now because a lot of people have rebuilt their inventories up from the Covid times. But what has pushed some of the prices down on the equipment is the low commodity prices. But it always takes a little while to do the math and add that we've got extra bushels coming too in a lot of areas. Once they start realizing that they're still going to have a good crop ... they might hold it and store it in a bin until the prices rebound. They go see their tax guy in November and then it come December ... that's one thing pretty much everybody in agriculture doesn't like to do is pay Uncle Sam a lot of tax.”

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