Despite cancellation fears due to the Foot and Mouth scare, last Fridays dispersal went ahead as planned and with great success. Not only were we favoured with dry weather but we also gained some fantastic results that were extremely pleasing for both our auctioneer and our vendor Mr Tony Reed.

Mr Reed, originally from Somerset has given up his tenancy of Walcote Manor Farm to make the big move to Alberta, Canada to manage Morsan Farms a large estate that concentrates on rearing calves. His prize winning "Withycombe Herd" of some 260 Holsteins was dispersed on 5th July this year and John Earle were favoured with the instructions to offer for sale all the machinery, implements, dairy equipment, farm and estate requisites together with the significant quantity of hay and clamp haylage by public auction.



After a long day's auctioning from 10.30am right through until 3pm, Richard Abbey, John Earle's auctioneer and partner of John Earle proved his expertise and experience in his field of work, making sure that the very last bid was made on every lot before banging down his gavel, gaining fantastic results. It was hoped that the combined lots would make in excess of £100,000 but after totalling the invoices for the day, all in all, including the various lots from neighbouring farmers, the grand total was well in excess of £160,000.

The top three lots were a JCB 526S Teleporter with pickup hitch which made £17,200, a Valtra T130 4WD tractor which after much spirited bidding, the gavel finally came down at £22,000, and a Massey Ferguson 6140 Dynashift, 2WD tractor, going for £6000.

A great deal of preparation and hard work went in to the sale day and Richard Abbey was very gratified that some exceptional results were achieved not least because of the very large number of potential buyers (over 500) at the farm who seemed to come from as far afield as Guernsey. John Earle's traditional, professional approach helped deliver these strong results, much helped by fine weather, the fear of Foot and Mouth receding from the Solihull area, and good back up support from all the firm's hard working staff.