Antique tractor collection to be sold

Stu McIntosh is an avid antique tractor collector, but because he has had trouble working on them, he is selling his 26-piece collection.

In Big Sandy, Oct. 18, McIntosh's tractors that have decorated his neighborhood east of the high school, will be up for auction.

"We're going to sell all 26 of them," McIntosh said, adding that most of his tractors are from the 1930s and 1940s - four of them from the 1920s. One 1920 model tractor is on steel wheels.

Two of the tractors are painted white because they were used for demonstrations when they were still being sold.

"We restored them all over the years," McIntosh said.

He said he bought the tractors from all over Montana - as far as Missoula - starting around 2003 or 2004, until two years ago.

"It's too hard to make it up and down to work on them," he said. He recently injured himself working on a tractor, breaking his leg and sustaining other injuries.

Whatever the tractors needed, he and his friends gave them, and he said they all run well.

When they auction off the tractors in Big Sandy, he said, he thinks the most valuable tractor might sell for around $20,000 but most of them will bring around $2,000 or $3,000.

"They are antiques and the older ones should bring in quite a bit of money," McIntosh said. " ... There's no big money in them, but it was a good hobby for me during the winter months."

The auction is being advertised all over the nation and should bring in collectors from far afield.

"A lot of older people like to buy them and put them in parades," he said. "They sit on them and go back to the old days."