BigIron Auction Scraper - Farm Equipment & Sullivan Lots

BigIron Auction Scraper - Farm Equipment & Sullivan Lots

Scrape every open lot on BigIron.com and Sullivan Auctioneers, all 6,500 of them, in one run of about five minutes. Each row carries 44 fields: make, model, year, category, current bid, next bid increment, bid count, minimum offer, buy-it-now price, closing time, seller, auction, city, state and ZIP. No login, no API key. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel or XML.

BigIron has no public API and its search is a paged web app that shows 50 lots at a time behind a sidebar of filter panels. This reads the same feed its own front end reads, applies your filters server side so you only pay for lots you want, and hands back one flat row per lot.

Who uses it	What they scrape BigIron for
Equipment dealers	What is coming up for sale this week in their territory, before the auction closes
Flippers and resellers	Live bids against buy-it-now prices to spot lots still trading under market
Ag lenders and insurers	Current asking and bid levels on collateral by make, model and year
Fleet and farm buyers	Every combine, planter or skid steer within a radius of their ZIP code
Market analysts	Bid depth, seller mix and regional supply across six industries

What it does

This Actor reads BigIron's open lot search and returns each lot as a flat row. Every lot carries:

• 🚜 Machine identity: title, make, model, year, category, category path, tracking number and BigIron's internal lot ID.
• 💰 Live bidding: current bid, next bid increment, bid count, minimum offer on make-an-offer lots, buy-it-now price, selling mode and whether bidding was extended.
• ⏱️ Timing: exact closing time in UTC, seconds remaining, seconds until the lot opens, and the auction it belongs to.
• 📍 Location: city, state, state code and ZIP, plus the seller and the buyer's premium that applies.
• 🖼️ Optional blocks: the seller's full description, the specification table, every full size photo, the equipment contact, attachments, loading terms and the raw BigIron record.
• 🗓️ Two more outputs: the upcoming auction calendar, and a directory of every valid filter value with its live lot count. Pick them with outputs.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel or XML, or stream from the API.

What you can do with BigIron auction data

🔎 Watch a make and model across every sale.

Filter to John Deere combines or Case IH planters and get every open lot in the country with its current bid and closing time, refreshed on a schedule.

📊 Build price comps from live bidding.

Pull current bid, bid count and buy-it-now for a category, and track where bidding actually lands against the asking price.

📍 Source inventory near a yard.

Set a ZIP code and a radius, or pick states and counties, and get everything closing inside that footprint.

🧭 Map supply and sellers.

Run with "outputs": ["facets"] to see how many open lots sit behind each make, category, county, seller and auction, then drill into the ones that matter.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
Every BigIron filter	16 server side filters: free text search with three match modes, industry, state, listing provider, make, model, category, model year, engine hours, horsepower, size, current bid range, auction, seller, county and a ZIP code radius. Each one was measured against the site's own result count before it went in.
Filter values included	A second output with one row per valid make, model, category, county, seller and bucket, and its live lot count. No guessing at spelling.
Fields no rival carries	minimumOfferUsd, BigIron's reserve on make-an-offer lots, and leadingBidderState, the state the current high bidder is bidding from.
Sullivan Auctioneers included	BigIron hosts Sullivan sales on the same platform. Both are read, and every row says which.
Optional blocks, billed only when they return	Description, specifications, photos, contact, attachments and terms are each a checkbox. Untouched blocks are neither fetched nor billed.
Open lots only	BigIron's robots file reserves its sold and past listings. This reads the open feed it allows, and nothing else.

How it compares

There is no other BigIron scraper on Apify. The closest actors cover neighbouring marketplaces: Ritchie Bros, IronPlanet, AuctionTime, Proxibid. Against those, the difference is depth per lot and the fact that every filter here is one the site actually honours, so the filtering happens on BigIron's servers rather than after you have paid for rows you discard.

Feature	ParseForge BigIron	lulzasaur/ironplanet	muhammadafzal/auctiontime	rastriq/rbauction
Covers BigIron and Sullivan	Yes	No	No	No
Server side filters	16, each measured	Search only	Search only	Search only
Live bid, next increment, bid count	Yes	Partial	Partial	Partial
Minimum offer and leading bidder state	Yes	No	No	No
Filter value directory	Yes	No	No	No
Price per row	$0.005	$0.02	$0.05	$0.0019

What a BigIron lot looks like

{
 "rowType": "lot",
 "lotId": "9fca7b36-4b97-f111-85cd-0022488cdb71",
 "title": "2021 Case IH 2130 16 Row Strip Till Planter",
 "lotUrl": "https://www.bigiron.com/Lots/2021-case-ih-2130-16-row-strip-till-planter",
 "lotSlug": "2021-case-ih-2130-16-row-strip-till-planter",
 "trackingNumber": "15485622",
 "make": "Case IH",
 "model": "2130",
 "year": "2021",
 "categoryName": "Planters",
 "categorySlug": "planters",
 "parentCategorySlug": "planters",
 "quantity": 1,
 "quantityUnits": "ea",
 "biddingPerUnit": "No",
 "saleStatus": "Active",
 "sellingMode": "MakeAnOffer",
 "currentBidUsd": 27500,
 "nextBidUsd": 27501,
 "minimumOfferUsd": 60000,
 "buyItNowUsd": 75000,
 "bids": 1,
 "leadingBidderNumber": 22274,
 "leadingBidderState": "Mississippi",
 "bidExtended": "No",
 "closesAt": "2026-10-05T04:59:00.000Z",
 "secondsRemaining": 2906175,
 "secondsUntilOpen": 0,
 "auctionId": "bfd42ea86da5f111aad1000d3a600915",
 "auctionSlug": "Sep_01_2026_12A",
 "auctionUrl": "https://www.bigiron.com/Auctions/Sep_01_2026_12A",
 "auctionName": "Sep 01, 2026 - 12:00 AM",
 "saleEventLabel": "IronExchange - Sep 2026",
 "auctioneer": "BigIron",
 "listingProvider": "BigIron",
 "seller": "Equipment Online",
 "locationCity": "Las Vegas",
 "locationState": "Nevada",
 "locationStateCode": "NV",
 "locationZip": "89165",
 "buyersPremium": "10%, Max: $1,000",
 "thumbnailUrl": "https://bigiron.blob.core.windows.net:443/thumbnail/items/9fca7b364b97f11185cd0022488cdb71/2021-case-ih-2130-16-row-strip-till-planter_5af4d3e4ed1b4a6aa5848ca46592c1d7.jpg",
 "groupId": "3929101d4b97f11185cd0022488cdb71",
 "scrapedAt": "2026-09-01T13:42:44.804Z"
}

Add "outputs": ["lots", "auctions"] and you also get one row per upcoming sale:

{
 "rowType": "auction",
 "auctionId": "02b95ef3-b165-f111-9b48-7ced8d2b8992",
 "title": "Sep 02, 2026 - Equipment Auction",
 "auctionSlug": "Sep_02_2026_9A",
 "auctionUrl": "https://www.bigiron.com/Auctions/Sep_02_2026_9A",
 "categoriesUrl": "https://www.bigiron.com/Industries?auction=Sep_02_2026_9A",
 "itemCount": 1086,
 "closesAtText": "Sep 2 9:00 AM CDT.",
 "auctioneerBrand": "BigIron",
 "hostedOnBigIron": "Yes",
 "summary": "1,086 Items - Items Begin Closing at Sep 2 9:00 AM CDT. View Categories",
 "scrapedAt": "2026-09-01T13:36:35.498Z"
}

Add "facets" and you get one row per valid filter value, with its live lot count:

{
 "rowType": "facet",
 "facet": "makes",
 "facetTitle": "Make",
 "facetValue": "John Deere",
 "title": "John Deere",
 "openLots": 771,
 "inputField": "makes",
 "seenOn": "all",
 "scrapedAt": "2026-09-01T13:41:05.799Z"
}

Configure the run

Leave everything empty and the Actor walks the whole open catalogue, earliest closing sale first, which is the order BigIron itself shows. Add filters and BigIron applies them before it sends the page, so only matching lots are written and billed. Filter values must match the site exactly; run once with "outputs": ["facets"] to get the list.

Every John Deere and Case IH lot open in Nebraska and Kansas:

{ "makes": ["John Deere", "Case IH"], "states": ["NE", "KS"], "maxItems": 500 }

Combines within 150 miles of a yard, with the seller's description and photos:

{ "searchTerm": "combine", "zipCode": "68008", "distanceMiles": 150, "includeDescription": true, "includePhotos": true, "maxItems": 200 }

Tractors between 100 and 149 horsepower built in the 1990s, with the specification table:

{ "categories": ["Tractors : Tractors 2WD"], "horsepowers": ["100 - 149"], "years": ["1990 - 1999"], "includeSpecifications": true, "maxItems": 100 }

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 rows as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 rows per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the BigIron Auction Scraper.
3. Set any filters you want, set maxItems, and click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to BigIron through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/bigiron-auctions-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language:

• "List every John Deere combine open on BigIron in Iowa and Nebraska with its current bid and closing time."
• "Find skid steers within 200 miles of ZIP 68008 closing this week and sort them by bid count."
• "Show me which BigIron sellers have the most open lots right now."

Copy this into ChatGPT, Claude, or Cursor to start:

Use the Apify Actor "parseforge/bigiron-auctions-scraper" to collect open BigIron auction lots. Input: { "makes": ["<make>"], "states": ["<XX>"], "categories": ["<Parent : Child>"], "maxItems": <n> }. It returns title, make, model, year, categoryName, currentBidUsd, buyItNowUsd, bids, closesAt, seller, locationCity, locationState and lotUrl per lot. Call it with the ApifyClient and my APIFY_TOKEN.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

A filter value has to match BigIron exactly, and a value the site does not know returns an empty page rather than an error. "John Deere" works, "john deere" and "JohnDeere" do not. Run once with "outputs": ["facets"] to get the exact strings, then copy them in.

Why fewer lots than I asked for?

Your filters matched fewer open lots than maxItems. The log prints the true total the moment the first page comes back: 6,486 open lot(s) match. If you asked for more than one output, maxItems is split evenly between them and what one does not use rolls into the next.

Why is a field empty?

BigIron does not fill every field on every lot. Measured over 702 live lots: make on 599, model on 551, year on 444, minimum offer on 187. Real estate and livestock lots carry no buyer's premium, and only IronExchange lots carry a written sale label. An empty field is the lot's real state, written as Not Disclosed.

Why is the run slow?

Two reasons. Deep pagination gets slower the further in you go: the whole 6,548 lot catalogue takes about 5 and a half minutes at the default memory, which is about 20 rows a second. And every extra data block opens the lot's own page, one request per lot, which runs at about 1.7 lots a second, roughly twelve times slower per row than the search feed. Leave the blocks off unless you need them.

A field stopped filling.

BigIron changed its page. Email us with your run ID so we can update the parser.

FAQ

Question	Answer
Do I need a BigIron account or API key?	No. It reads the public lot search, the same feed the site's own front end uses.
Does it include sold and past lots?	No. BigIron's robots file reserves its sold and past listings, so this reads the open feed only.
Does it cover Sullivan Auctioneers?	Yes. BigIron hosts Sullivan sales on the same platform, and every row records which brand is selling.
How do I know what to put in a filter?	Set "outputs": ["facets"]. It returns every valid make, model, category, county, seller, auction and bucket with its live lot count and the input field it belongs to.
Can I combine filters?	Yes, and each accepts several values at once. Filters are ANDed across fields and ORed inside one field.
Can I search near a location?	Yes, by state, county, or a ZIP code plus a radius in miles.
How current are the bids?	The bid, bid count and seconds remaining are read at the moment the page is fetched, straight from BigIron's own lot record.
How many lots per run?	Free plan: 10. Paid: up to 1,000,000, bounded by the roughly 6,500 lots open at any time.
Is this an official BigIron product?	No. It is unofficial and reads only public BigIron data.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Big Iron Auction Company, LLC or Sullivan Auctioneers. It collects only publicly available lot data from the open auction feed, and it does not read the sold, past or account areas that BigIron's robots file reserves. You are responsible for using the data in compliance with BigIron's terms and applicable laws, including GDPR, CCPA and PIPL. Do not use it to identify, profile, or target individuals.