Their day is over. Square balers have gone the way of the typewriter and the rotary dial phone, replaced by the big round bales that occupy Minnesota’s shorn hay fields like an old master scene.

In May, one of the hottest sectors of the used equipment market was square balers. According to Machinery Pete, search traffic for these listings on machinerypete.com was up nearly 19 percent.

More proof came yesterday (May 6, 2017) on a farm auction in southwest PA. The 2008 New Holland 575 small square baler pictured below sold for $14,000: So how does $14,000 stack up?