Red-hot auction on the high plains: collectors snatch unique offerings at Red Gaede estate auction.

Farm Collector, October, 2003 by McDaniel, Leslie C.

Some tractor collectors are specialists, coolly focused on a narrow segment of the hobby. Others like everything they see, no matter what model or manufacturer. Red Gaede was a blend of those two: He never saw a rare tractor he didn't like.

Tractors from the Gaede collection scattered across me country following an estate auction held in July in the eastern Colorado town of Limon. The parade of wannabe buyers arriving at the sale with empty trailers was as steady as the line of grain trucks at the co-op during harvest. Tractor pilgrims came too, happy just to see a collection like Red's.

"It's the chance of a lifetime to see this many rare tractors at one place," Auctioneer Dennis Polk says. "It's just unheard of."

Gaede began...