CLASSIC TRACTOR CRAZE CONTINUES.

Eager buyers shell out big bucks for rare, restored antique tractors and ag memorabilia.

The feeding frenzy for classic tractors, especially those restored to mint condition, is fueled in part by professionals needing to get in touch with their roots -- yearning for a tractor like Dad had.

These people aren't farmers. They left home years ago for greener fields, which they found by becoming doctors, lawyers or corporate managers. Now they want to connect to their growing-up years. And what better way to do so than with a family tractor?

They have the money. They attend auctions. They bid up the prices.

Hard-core collectors -- the old money -- still buy most of the antique tractors, adding to their treasure troves. For some, price is apparently no problem. If it's a tractor they want and don't already have, they just keep nodding their heads yes to the auctioneer until he hollers, "SOLD!"

This antique tractor collection snowball started down the mountain in the late 1980s and gathered momentum throughout the '90s and into this century, where it has reached the avalanche stage. The business of antique tractors is obviously booming, and records keep falling.

Take Ray Vesely, a Minnesota farmer-collector, for example. Last summer, he paid a record-smashing $141,000 for a rare John Deere Model 630 Hi-Crop. Only ten of these tractors were built, underscoring the fact that low-production, mint-condition classics demand and get top dollar.

When collector Wayne Bourgeois sold his collection of John Deere tractors at auction in northeast Missouri last year, a 1930 John Deere "P," a tractor made specifically for Maine potato farmers, sold for $46,000. Bourgeois's 1924 Waterloo Boy brought $30,000, and an early John Deere Model B fetched $11,500.

He summed up his sale this way. "The tractors brought twice as much as I thought they might."

Estate sales of fine tractor collections draw buyers from all over the US, Canada and Europe. The top-selling tractor at the famous Ed Spiess sale wound up in Canada. A sale of Massey-Harris and Cockshutt tractors in Maryland drew buyers and lookers from England and Canada, where the Massey name is special.

At the watershed close-out auction of Oscar's Dreamland Museum in Montana three years ago, technology was a big part of the auction action. Bids were taken on the Internet from all over the globe.

Last summer in Indiana, the Don Kingen estate sale of Minneapolis-Moline tractors and implements attracted tractor enthusiasts from more than 30 states. The top seller was a Minneapolis-Moline 2-Star crawler that sold for $18,500 to a young Ohio construction builder.

Quite a few of Kingen's tractors in the $5,000 - $6,750 bracket were sold. As always, condition was a key factor in sale price. For instance, compare these figures. One nicely-restored Minneapolis-Moline RTS sold for $5,250, while a similar tractor in "common" condition brought only $1,800.

This sale emphasized the point that the demand for memorabilia is stronger than ever. A large McCormick-Deering metal sign, which was good as new condition, brought $1,300. Service manuals, piled high on a hay wagon, brought as much as $160 each.

Topping it off, a choice Minneapolis-Moline straw hat with a flawless M-M emblem in front sold for $220 -- leaving some observers scratching their heads about.