The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1945-02-15
FARM SALES HAVE
DEVELOPED UNIQUE
Wartime FLAVOR
Raffle-Like Drawings Decide
Lucky Bidders for Items
Sold AT Ceiling
Hundreds of Names Are Re-
ceived from Those Willing
to Pay Top Price

Pubilc sale on farms these days
have taken on a distinctive wartime
flavor resulting from a critical short
age of farm machinery and restric-
tions imposed on sky-high bidding by
rigid OPA ceiling prices on many
items.
Squeezed by a lack of machinery
on one hand and growing shortage
of manpower on the other desperate
farmers often pay fantastic prices
for equipment not covered by ceiling
restrictions.
At the same time, the demand is
so great for machinery on which cell
ing prices apply that it is no uncom-
mon occurrence for the auctioneer to
find as many as $50 to 300 bidders
willing to pay the top price permit
ted by law.
OPA permit auctioneers to desig-
nate any one of many bidders as the
buyer of the item, but none of them
working sales in this area want to in
cur the displeasure of the crowd by
following that procedure.
Draw Lucky Name
Consequently they have worked out
a procedure generally followed here
in which all prospective buyers place
their names on slips of paper. These
are collected in a hat,
Someone not interested in the sale,
usually a child or woman-is selected
to draw one name from the hat, and
the lucky bidder gets the item at the
ceiling price.
Drawings for such items as tract
ors, combines, corn pickers, etc, all
covered by 0PA ceilings, have be-
come the feature of sales these days,
and it is by no means uncommon to
have as many as 800 names in the
hat.
Farm observers point out, however,
that many bidders do not want the
item, but a farmer who is interested
in obtaining it at ceiling price will
get his friends to put in their names
with the understanding that they will
resell it to him should they be the
lucky party in drawing.
Ceiling of $50
Ceilings of 85ed of present list
prices apply to equipment one-year-
old or less, such as tractors, combines,
manure spreaders, corn pickers.
pickup baler, side delivery rakes, hay
leaders, and corn binders.
If the equipment is more than one
year old, the ceiling price is 70e6 of
present list price, and any old item
in anything approaching fair condi-
tion will bring the maximum.
In another class are discs, tractor
plows, corn cultivators (unless sold
with tractor), grain drills, moving
machines, corn planters and wagons,
on which there are no OPA ceilings.
These sell at fantastic prices which
have no relation to their original
purchase price. If they are in work.
ing condition at all they invariably
will sell at prices much higher than
they brought when new.
Fantastic Bidding
AS an evidence of what demand
will do when there is no ceiling, a
corn cultivator placed on the block at
sale last week brought over 5000.
Had it been sold with a tractor, q
ceiling price of about $140 would have
applied.
Farm opinion is that there is no
apparent reason why some machin-
cry has been put under ceilings and
other has not, for all of it is badly
| needed by farmers who hope to keep
up with the demands for maximum
production.
Steel tire wagons are about the
only item which prove TO be a drug
at sales, because farmers want only
wagons with rubber tires. Top prices
of from SIS to SO are the best that
can be expected for such wagons,
representing decided contrast to
the free and easy bidding for every
thing else.