Wasn't really sure which section to put this in but figured it's more of a farm tractor than anything. So I'm looking to sell my Ford 9N and judging by the serial number I'm pretty sure it's a 1941. I've looked around and it seems like there's a pretty wide range of prices for these tractors depending on the condition and I like to think mines pretty decent but figured I'd get a couple opinions before I go asking too much for it. Also I'm selling it with a 3 foot brush hog. I was thinking about asking around $2500 but what do you guys think?
I'd say that's a little better Ford than $2,500, but the market is down a little in the last few years, and so local anyway that what I think is probably irrelevant. If it was here, I'd buy it for somebody that's looking for something like that. Is that really only a 3' bush hog?
Looks decent. Around Missoula one like that would sell for $4000. Some parts of the country they're much cheaper. Arkansas and Missouri is loaded with cheap old tractors.
Nice looking 9N Ford cabosh ! I generally look around tractor house at asking prices to get an idea . http://www.tractorhouse.com/listing...rs-less-than-40-hp/manufacturer/ford/model/9n Those old farm tractors are a pretty safe investment if you have some mechanical skill & a few tools . Better than money in the bank . Was going to guess it would have sold new for around $800.00 in the early 40's . Tractor Data shows a 1939 original selling price at $ 585.00 http://www.tractordata.com/farm-tractors/000/2/2/225-ford-9n.html What kind of motor cross bike is that in the background ?
The 9N looks like someone welded truck spindles/hubs on the front. Maybe it had a loader at one time and they needed stouter rubber under it.
Well it sold the day after I put it on craigslist. I had it on for $2500 because I looked around and there's quite a few of them around over here, and there were a few for sale in a little rougher shape for around $1500. So I think it was an alright deal all in all. Sadly we didn't really have a use for it anyway, all we did with it was brush hogging a small field (which is easier and faster with a lawnmower) and pulling some logs (which our bulldozer is better for). And td25c that's my little brother's yamaha YZ85 in the backround.
I live in MO and last summer one in good shape brought 300.00 and another will brand new tires brought 500.00. I have one seting by my shop that a guy rescued from the crusher for 150.00. It runs great and hasnt be used alot with good tires but now it needs a rad.gastank.grill and hood. It will cost way more to fix than its worth. I need to check out and maybe haul a load of them some were and get rich. What are they useing them for?
9N is the most sought after of the Ford tractors of the 40s and 50s. They have a few "modern" features making them appear to be a functional collector's Item. In practice, not so much. The trick is finding a buyer with deep pockets, and no actual tractor experience. My daughter in law's father has one. It spends most of its time in my garage dismantled waiting for parts. The rest of the time it is parked in his shed 'cause it isn't very useful. They are special as the tractor that fed the world. They aren't very useful. I say this as the owner of two Farmall Cubs, the other not so useful little tractor. Willie
Look what they go for in Missoula Craigslist. Some people put chains and a back blade on them to clear snow in the winter and grade the driveway in the summer. I see them used regularly as a backup in small haying operations. I used to have an 8N and I loved it. It amazed me what I could do with a 5' bushog on that tractor. There is a glut of them in Missouri.
They can be pretty useful if you use them for the right kind of work. Like while we had this one it worked great for pulling logs around, and I think the best use for a tractor like this would be pulling wagons or doing field work like tedding hay and stuff. They are old though and there's plenty of tractors out there that can do the same work faster and easier, but I'll always love the simplicity of the old rigs like the 9n.
Disadvantages of 8N and 9N tractors: They are geared too high and underpowered. Advantages: They are rugged, made in USA, cheap to buy, parts are cheap and easy to find and they last forever. They're so cheap that any use you find for them at all is cost-effective.
My Dad still has a 1949 Case VAC and a 1953 Case DC and he works them all the time, just regular farm tractors to him. His Dad bought them 10 years old, or less, when the farm was much bigger. They had very little money so I don't know why they ended up with Cases but it seems like a good choice 60 years later. Compare them to the Ford -N it is a night and day difference. The Cases are much more rugged and more "modern" in design if you can really say that, but also they are a bit larger and heavier class of tractor. At the fair I was noticing they had a lot of Internationals on display and the Cases seemed to be ahead of them on design features in those years as well. That being said, I am sure the Cases were more expensive new and the population is not the same. From what I understand the Fords were kind of an entry level product so they sold scads of them. You don't have to go far to find them for sale around here in various states of "when I get around to it", for instance there is one at a neighbor's that has been rotting in a yard since he bought it, fixed it all up, put all new rubber on it and it has a box blade and front end loader. There is even a small time dirt contractor that uses one for driveway grading.
In 1940 three 9Ns could be bought for the price of a Farmall H. Until they had a need to pull hard as in plowing sod they could be used for the same job. In January 1942 my father was in CT working at Remington Arms.He got word his father was dying. Arranging enough gas to get round trip was a major accomplishment. A month after Pearl Harbor, his draft notice arrived while he was in VT. People worried about gas consumption then. Some farmers made do with their horse drawn implements when they bought their first tractor. In the day, the 9N made sense. Today, at the antique tractor pulls the 9Ns come off the trailer for the first pull, then are reloaded. My Farmall M with no weights at all is still pulling at 2:00 PM. Comparing a 9N to a Farmall makes as much sense as comparing a Prius to a Kenworth. Both are fine machines serving utterly different purposes. Willie
I don't know if I'd go that far, maybe like an F150 and a Kenworth, both do roughly the same thing. That 3 to 1 is about the weight difference between an H and 9-2-8N. I bet IH made a lot more money on the one H than Ford did on the three N's. I wonder if you could buy a Farmall during the war? The 2N was made without a starter, alternator or tires to conserve resources for the war.
Yup, you could if you were able to document that you were a real farmer. Of course there were no weekend warriors to buy tiny Kubotas with loader & backhoe able to lift the same weight as their owner. My friend has the first M the local dealer ever sold. If you count grandfather's it's a one owner. He sheepishly admitted recently it has the original gear oil in transmission, and differential. Except for an M&W hand clutch it is unaltered from new, and has never been repaired, only lubricated. I have a 1940, My son has a 1941. They went to extremes during the war, and put iron wheels, and a steel shift knob. Struggling farms rarely bought IH tractors during the war. They were never cheap. I've always marveled at the production numbers of the H (27 HP) as opposed to the M (41 HP) I often ask very old farmers why the H was so much more common than the M. The answer is most often gas. In the 40s people worried about gas consumption. I recently talked to an old farmer still in business with 1000 acres. He said the logic was that if you couldn't get enough gas you'd downsize the operation, and a "big" tractor would be too big. I'm pretty sure Henry made enough money to be famous. Mr. International lived in a homeless shelter. Willie
Ford tractors with there harry ferguson 3 point machaicalised farming. Henry had one thing in mined to make good cheap tractors. The vac was light years ahead of the ford. It wouldnt have taken alot to make fords better but it must have been to much cost to build them with stuff like better gearing. Farmalls were made with steel wheels, mags very little rubber and no lights during the war. H farmalls are good tractors but like the AC WD they had there place and geting on and off wasnt one of them.
Not sure if he made that much on the early tractors. I saw an interview with an engineer who started off as a draftsman for Henry Ford. He was involved in the introduction of the 9N or maybe it was the Fordson? Anyway, they put the tractor together, fine tuned the assembly line, put it out on the market and had no clue what it cost them to build. He told the story of talking to a class of elementary students, when he mentioned that he had worked with Henry Ford, one of the kids asked if he had met Moses. The three point was ahead of it's time in my opinion. And a premium option on a entry level tractor. I wonder if Ford sold the tractors cheap in order to make it up on the implements? A great strategy as long as the patent lasted. That three point is the main reason for the popularity and price of little Fords for homeowners. You can convert the IH,Case, AC hitches, but it's easier just to get a Ford.
I think they throwed in a plow if you bought a ford. I have read alot about eary tractor builders and every one thought about if they could use stuff the first time tractor buyer already had horse drawn stuff. Henry wanted farmers to have tractors so profit was his last worry. He had to by up alot of his companys shares so he could do what he did. The ford tractor is alot of things but most inportant is its the father of all modern tractors and help grow cheap food for a big part of the world. In my mind no farmer should every look down on the 9N.
A great conversation piece. Lots of history went into them. Yes, they once fed the world. I know an old man who once owned several truck farms. He had several 9N &2N, said they were perfect for that operation. I think they are not used today for their intended purpose. Those of us who want a loader, maybe a little backhoe, plow snow, cut grass, bush hog, grade the driveway, skid logs, etc. etc. I believe could do better. In my world the "61 B275 IH gets used to power the wood splitter, hog, or grade the driveway. The '85 IH 385 gets light duty loader work, hog, etc. These tractors are twice the power, weight, features, and cost the same, on half the fuel. Still the bigger jobs like earth moving, and tree work are saved for backhoe, crawler, or Power Wagon. One thing I'd retrofit the 9N with would be wheelie bars. These tractors have killed a number of people when they were either hitched improperly, or a component of the three point hitch breaks. They are famous for going over backward. A very experienced friend had a real close brush with tragedy loading one on a trailer. When it went up on its drawbar, he had the presence of mind to push the clutch. The landing wasn't graceful, but he was alive. The antique tractor pulling rules disallow their pulling with the three point drawbar, likely for this reason. Low center of gravity is this tractor's best feature, but it places the drawbar (if at standard height) too high. The tractor can walk out from under its drawbar. Willie
WHAT are you smoking?
No, this is the father for modern tractors - the F20 was the first rop crop tractor
Farmalls look tippy, In truth they are mostly wider, and at least as good on side hills as Ford. In the day they were very expensive, cause they were a better tractor. I'd say the turning point of Farmall surging ahead in function was the letter series. I belive that the Farmall M was the best tractor you could buy in 1940. At antique tractor pulls they compete with tractors twenty years newer. Willie
This is too funny! I have an 8N plus a lot of implements for it. I also have a Farmall M. Comparing one to the other or to any tractor that was physically larger and therefore tipped the scales in favor of weight is ridiculous! Now as far as plowing? I've plowed sod with the 8N and a 2 bottom plow with no problem! More than once! As far as why the M didn't sell better? They didn't come out until the depression was winding down. So everyone was use to having no money. Farmers of that day worked literally from dawn to dusk and sometimes later. They didn't see the need of taking a day off except for Sundays. So to many the M was a waste of money. Money they were not willing to part with when something cheaper would do even if it meant working long hours. Heck most farms were between 120 and 160 acres total! So if an N would plow about 6 acres a day that was fine and faster than an horse. When it was time to plant small grains they would plow the ground, disk it and plant it. Few weeks later they plowed the corn ground. Didn't mater if they were on an M, an H, a VAC or an N. They did what it took to get the crop in. Keep in mind that most of these farms had livestock and about 1/3-1/2 would have been pasture and farmstead. RIck
I have a friend 75 years old who worked in his very early teens for a haying contractor. He and his crew traveled from farm to farm haying. This would have been around 1954. Although they did nothing but hay, and could justify bigger equipment. They mowed with a Farmall A, tedded with a 9N, and baled with a Farmall 300. I have always marveled that the usual excuse for little tractors was big ones used too much gas. In a time a dollar would buy five gallons, it seems strange to hear that gas was that important. I can't think other than fewer hours would mean the same or less gas. People thought differently then. Saturday I passed a sod farm where in a 200 acre field a man with an eight wheeled articulated tractor towed a gang mower that must have been 75 feet wide. I wasn't even able to count the hydraulic motors. He mowed a huge field that looked like a putting green. Beside it were several more fields as big, in various stages of growth. His mowing must have been finished before noon. Willie
It is worth the best someone is willing to pay for it. The advertised price is a basis upon which to begin the negations....
Willie: Lot of the people who survived the depression were really tight with a dollar. Heck they were farmers. They expected to work from sun up to sun down. So they never considered what their time was worth. And they had the impression that the smaller tractor would burn less gas. Most farmers back then didn't use an accountant. No one showed them that a tractor that burned 2 gallons an hour and would disk 10 acres in that hour was just as efficient as a tractor that burned 1 gallon an hour but had to run 2 hours to get they same 10 acres disked. Even if they had an M in 52 was a 2400 dollar tractor and burned about 2.7 gallons an hour at PTO rpms. An 8N was a 1400 dollar tractor in 1952 and burned 2.5 gallons an hour. What I've observed through the years with depression survivors: Ones that were older: the parents, the kids that had to quit school to help the family out is they were extreme tightwads, my dad included. My mom, FIL and MIL were all 10 years or more his junior and small children during the depression or were born during the depression. They spend money. They are hoarders too in the worse sense of the word. But the decision makers on the farms through the 40's and early 50's were guys who had quit school to help. The younger ones were not the decision makers yet. So with a group of people, farmers in this case, who grew up during the depression or matured shortly after the depression they expected to work long hours. Didn't spend anymore than they had to and didn't have anyone pointing out that the bennies of the larger more productive tractor. Back then the only ones making claims of any type were the manufactures. So back in the day a farmer had to buy an M then buy NEW implements for it to gain the bennies of the larger tractor. So 2400 bucks plus. Now a guy could by an 8N for 1400 and although I'm not sure of the prices back then I bet a full line of implements to use with the 3 point for another 1K. Kinda funny but my dad was always trying to save a penny here and there. He had to quit school during the depression to go to work. Then they lost the family farm. Dad then joined the US Army in 38. Now he was a very good mechanic. He hated V8 engines. Waste of money when you could get better mileage with a 6! Plus to more plugs to buy at tune up time. Once I learned about cars on my own I came to understand power to weight. My dad who was a very intelligent man refused to accept that in certain applications a V8 could save money. HIs argument then was that you could do with something smaller that would get good mileage with that 6. It really amazed me the people who were just like him. Rick
Oh boy, now it's a Ford N series argument now that Rick showed up! Maybe I'm regretting directing him to this topic the other day. On the topic of depression, Rick nailed it about the pinching pennies and not spending anymore than necessary. I regards to your engine applications, my 95 Chevy Silverado came from the factory with a 305 in it. Once I got the truck, that 305 was very tired, so I dropped in the usual 350....gas mileage improved. I figured this....that 305 was moving the same size truck as that 350 and that 305 had to wor harder and needed more gas to move it.
Wasn't any argument. I just pointed out the whys and how's. Didn't claim one was better than the other. Only that to someone not really familiar with book keeping would think the N was a better deal than the M. Kinda simple really. A tractor, plow, disk, cultivator, planter and mower for the price of a tractor. And forget about adapting much of you old stuff to use with an M. Tractors much to big but the N being smaller......hence the M not selling as well as people might think it should have. Rick
I guess I should have used "discussion" instead or argument Rick. The logic makes sense & that is one argument for the Fast Hitch (as you have mentioned before on RP). Hard to get some farmers to buy whole new line up of equip. to fit the NEW tractor they just bought.
My family never owned a tractor My grandfather had a home made thing made from Ford truck parts. In January of 1942 the attack on Pearl Harbor left Americans numb. As my father approached his 20th birthday he was working at Remington Arms in Bridgeport CT. He got the call his father was dying. He made it home to VT, his father was already asleep. Next morning, dad's twentieth birthday, he found his father dead. Soon after, he got his draft notice. The farm was sold in an emergency sale to an investor, remaining time was spent moving his mother, and two younger sisters to a rented apartment. If you want to discuss a person affected by poverty, and loss that'd be him. Years later he was buying vans for the electrical business, he wanted the smallest engine available. As I came along I tried to convince him a bigger engine would save gas. He wouldn't hear of it. Late in his career, he would unload his truck every night. No need to carry all that stuff, you'll use more gas. I pointed out that I worked most days without having to go get something. I traveled half as many miles. Willie
In the 70's and early 80's Grandpa had 2 Ford 8N's and a Farmall M, used mostly for brushogging his ranch. When I visited, I was recruited to run them, as they always needed a new sucker to get covered in poison oak. The Farmall had a bigger mower and would cut an acre in considerably less time than the 8N's, But the 8N's were much more pleasant and safe to operate and the 3 point made it easy to back up. Back in the 40's, I don't think it was an accounting decision to buy the most efficient tractor. It was a matter of whether or not you could afford a tractor at all, and the lower the price point, the more likely you could buy one. Henry Ford wanted to make a tractor that would last practically forever and empower the little guy and, all the faults of his underpowered, high geared tractors taken into consideration, I think he did a pretty damn good job of it.
LOL, I know. I knew farmers here in the early 70's that had tractors with the Fast Hitch that either had adapters for it to 3 point or just used drawbar pull implements. Sounds like my dad. And he was typical with most of the older guys who had been teens to young adults during the depression. the "pound wise, penny foolish" quote comes to mind. My dad wouldn't carry anything in the car and later pickup unless he had to for the same reason. Cost more gas! IN the early 40's that was true. "If you could afford one". A lot of the young men who came back from the war had money saved up and tractors of all types sold like mad! But these former service members were still a product of the depression and price point was important to them. Sure we use different terms today than they did. You also had the young men who returned from the early days of the Korean war. They too had money saved while serving in a combat zone. Not anywhere near the 2400 dollars it cost for an M but enough to get easy financing on a 1400 dollar N. Like I had stated the guys back then didn't have an accountant. They based buying decisions on how much it cost. Considerations of having more free time didn't come into play because they didn't think about things like that. I mention this because the 8N was brought up. It didn't start production until late 47 and was considered a 1948 year model tractor. Even the Farmall H was 600 bucks more than the 8N. The price point sold a lot of tractors. There were other cheap tractors too but I guess from production numbers that a lot of folks opted to spend a couple of hundred more to get the 3 point. So yea, Henry and a few others did empower the small guy. Rick
I would agree with your last sentence. Around here, there were/are next to none. Everyone here was all about row crops, so early Farmalls or D***re seemed to fit the bill. Throw in AC's and that is all there was back in the hay day of Mr. Ford's N series. The only disagreement I have with anything in this most is when a poster called the N series the father of the modern tractor. That is just plain wrong.
Depending on who tells the story Henry was either horrible, or benevolent. Feeding the world was his goal, becoming fabulously rich doing it was also his goal. He did both. Ford's N series were my father's kind of tractors. I feel sure that had he been on the farm to the end of WWII he'd have had a used N series. Had the farm stayed in the family, I'd have been lobbying for something bigger. Last night a neighbor showed up. He was a child on a big farm 15 miles away. At age 9 his father died suddenly. At age ten his mother succumbed also. His 18 year old brother took over everything, farm, parental responsibilities & everything else. Older brother has expanded to absorb several neighboring farms. He owns perhaps 1000 acres, and uses perhaps 4000 more. I'd be hard pressed to guess how many teats he milks..... maybe four thousand. That's 1,000 cows. (Farmers mess with us that way) Neighbor (58 years old) talks of the Metawee valley in Vt, along Route 30 in Pawlet, and Rupert. Farm country, by Vt standards, big farms. His father had a Super MD. A neighbor became the Big Dog when he bought a Fordson Major. Vermonters don't tend to run over crops while still growing, They were fine with utility shaped tractors. By the end of the Korean war, the race was on! Bring on the horsepower! I point out that Dairy farms didn't exist here until WWII. Prior to that they were diversified farms. They might produce milk as a portion of production. My grandfather was a butcher, sold wood, made syrup, sold pulp, and bark to the tanneries. He raised Beef, Pork, Turkeys, Chickens, and Lamb. In the basement of the hotel he rented space and ran a meat market. With no refrigeration, he sold meat on ice all day, then went door to door late day. The present owners locked his marble smoke house in 1943. No one has seen the inside since. He built furniture, and was engaged in the industry of moving mountain buildings to the valley. Willie
Nope! It's correct! I know what you are thinking. But look at modern tractors today. The vast bulk of tractors sold today are not row crop models and will never spend a day in a corn field cultivating. But the vast bulk will have a 3 point hitch! Heck, the vast bulk of tractors today are utilities and compact utilities.....really making the N the father, mother big sister and brother of the modern tractor!:jawdrop:falldownlaugh! RIck
The historic value of the 9N can't be challenged. As a collector's item they are significant. In the same sense that we seldom see model Ts used as daily drivers, they are less user friendly than plenty of newer tractors. Side hill safety is good, but going over backwards is not. Buy one for light duty use. If you need more, you can buy newer with better features for the same money. Willie
Willie, no one is claiming that there was a Ford on every farm. Ford accounted for about 1/4 of tractor production between 1939 and the end of the N series in 1954. IH was a close 2nd and actually topped Ford if you count crawlers sales too. Not that's kinda hard because most of those went to work as dozers, crawler loaders, scraper pullers or for logging. There are pictures of various tractors being used by industry too. One interesting one is of an IH McCormick W6 at the Ford Willow Run aircraft plant being used as a tug to move B24 bombers around during WWII. Likewise there are pictures of Ford N's being used a tugs for fighters. After WWII Ford also aggressively marketed their tractors to city and county governments, contractors, electricians, plumbers, landscapers and golf courses with a variety of implements including mowers, loaders and backhoes, trenchers and others. So not all of them ended up on the farm. YouTube has a variety of promotional films by Ford and others trying to sell their tractors that can be viewed. Some of the Ford ones include the other uses. Rick
They didn't have a dealer in every town. Here the local dealer sold IH, Next town it was JD. The nearest Ford dealer was 14 miles away. That mattered in 1940. Used tractors came from auctions. I doubt there were enough used ones to go around in the early days. Willie
Yea the availability of a dealer in some areas made a big difference. In other areas like mine even though the JD was closest most opted for other brands. The JD back in the 50/60/early 70's thought that if he didn't have a part or his very few mechanics were busy you would buy something new. That kinda fell flat and farmers here skipped the equally poor Ford dealer here too for the most part. After all a broke down tractor or baler isn't getting any work done. Then add in that a crop is ready to plant or harvest with rain in the forecast! Now out here at one time IH had a dealer if not in every town about every other town. Plus Ford forced a lot of car dealers to sell tractors too in farming areas. The guy that had the Ford dealership 6 miles from me didn't want anything to do with tractors but Ford made him carry them. When he retired Ford would not transfer the dealership so it closed. I drank coffee with him in the morning a couple of years after I retired from the Army until he passed. I learned a lot more about his dealership than I needed to know! He loved to complain about how FOMOCO treated him. He really hated the AG line! In the early days? Heck people were still using horses into the early 50's! Most not for everything but some used them until there were enough tractors available "at the right price". Speaking of horses Allis Chalmers had an ad out in it's early days regarding horses. They claimed in the ad that one horse required 20 acres between crop and pasture per year that could be freed up to make money on if a farmer would simply buy an AC and get rid of his horse! Said that you didn't have to feed a tractor when you were not actually using it. The AC 2-16 was supposed to allow you to use your horse drawn implements so you could actually just buy the tractor. http://www.tractordata.com/farm-tractors/003/0/6/3066-allis-chalmers-6-12.html . But 795 dollars in 1919 was a lot of money! As far as distances traveled goes: We moved to a farming area in 1971 and dad bought the farm I now own in 72. Most of the local farmers would throw a fit if JR. wanted to go to the county seat 25 miles away for anything. Once a month was about it. But that same farmer would drive there several times in one day for parts if needed and not think a thing about it. But you are right, in 1940 distance did make a huge difference. But on the other hand a farmer would go outside the immediate area, say an extra 15 or so miles when there was a 1,000 dollar price difference too. Plus as cars became more common and more reliable that really cut travel times. We still have some old timers around here tell of driving a new tractor home 20 plus miles in the 40's because of the brand that dad had wanted or got the best deal on. One still has the Farmall H he drove home in the 40's when he was 12. IIRC about 18 miles. And that was with Ford, JD and AC all being closer. It was his dad's first new tractor. He and his son have restored it. Looks fantastic! But I bet a lot of tractors sold because that brand was the closest too. One old timer I knew who passed in 1980 would drive all over the state looking for the best deal on something. And he was known as a terrible tight wad. He wound up being my sister's father in law! I remember him throwing a fit when his wife baked him a birthday cake because he thought it was a waste of money. I can't remember how many times he told me when I baled hay for him in 1972 that "anyone farming with a tractor over 100 HP was just showing off". At the time he owned a one year old Farmall 826, 3 560D's and an old AC turned around backwards with a loader on it. He too was a product of the depression. So yes, some bought because it was close. But if some felt the dealer wasn't good they would travel a little to buy. Rick