farm clearing sales

[Howard]

Yep, Ryan, same here.
There's a couple of reasons that come to mind.
Firstly, most of the smaller farms around here have been swallowed up by big operators (although still primarily family based). These clearing sales were plentiful in the past when I was a young bloke, but now are very few and far between.
Another observation is the shift of our farmers in professionalism. Farms are much cleaner, tidier, and organised. Like any business a farm's presentation should reflect the quality of their product. You just don't see old stuff laying around on farms like you did twenty years ago.
I can't tell you how many times old timers from around this district have told me "Oh, Yeah, (insert name) had a blitz on his farm, sold it at his clearing sale for (insert value of sale, typically below $100).
This is just one of the several reasons that I reckon that I was born about ten years too late!
Cheers
H

[Marc Montgomery]

In Canada, roving scrappers, combined with environmental laws, mean lots of old stuff lying around behind the barn or out in the trees, is gone. Cruising the back roads one used to see quite a bit of potentially interesting stuff, old cars, tractors, CMP stuff but very rare now.

Also because of environmental laws, higher scrap prices, and more "professional" -profit- making junk yard operations there are a) far fewer junk yards than before and B) what are called 10 and 5 year yards... in other words parts for newer cars, anything over 10 or even 5 years gets scrapped--efficiency and profit