I had a 124 in the late 90's. Bought it on a whim from a JD dealer because it was cheap and the previous owner had bought it new and used it very little. (Most of our stuff around here at the time was JD). I ended up really liking the baler - the only thing wrong with it is that it should have been a 128 (wider pickup). When I was in the market for a replacement for that one I tried to find a new one but no luck. (At that time MF had sold that baler line to Gehl and they made/sold them for a short while). So I had a couple of Deere 338's after that. Then I "saw the light" - I am on my 3rd MF 1840 inline baler (with Kuhns accumulator).

To comment on the original OP, here in extreme SW Minnesota, there was maybe one or two guys who had bale thowers. Most of the small square bales around were stacked on racks by hand, including our own.