While our editors traverse the country to find the best content for those magazines, we find other oddities related to the old-car hobby that we really had no place for - until now. With this blog, we're giving you a behind-the-scenes look at what we see and what we do during the course of putting out some of the finest automotive magazines you'll ever read.
Just as the Case 30-60 tractor represented a seismic change in agricultural equipment when it was introduced more than 110 years ago (along with the literal seismic activity from its 13 tons of mass), so too did the recent record sale of a restored Case 30-60 for close to $1.5 million represent a seismic change in the small but growing world of collectible tractors, marking the first time in history that a tractor - new or old - has sold for more than seven figures.
"For decades, people have been wondering aloud whether a tractor will ever sell for $1 million," said Kurt Aumann, whose auction company conducted the sale of the Case late last month. "This sale can't help but fundamentally change things when it comes to collectible tractors."
The 1913 Case 30-60, engine number 889, sold for significantly more than $1 million - $1.47 million - when it came up for auction during Aumann's annual online auction of pre-1930 tractors, beating the record set in 2019 at another Aumann sale when a 1910 Marshall Colonial Class C tractor sold for $535,000. Aumann noted that even new tractors have yet to surpass $1 million, with the most expensive - the Case IH Quadtrac - selling for about $600,000.
