A sale of farm equipment at Sundown Pastoral’s Keytah property at Moree NSW has realised more than $9m and set a record for an unreserved public agricultural auction in Australia.
A total of 236 lots went under the hammer at Friday’s auction where 767 bidders lined up, but not all at the property with 387 registered online to lodge bids remotely while watching a livestream of the auction.
It was the company’s second auction at Moree this year, after more than 190 lots went under the hammer in March for a total of $4.67m.
Planning for Friday’s auction began when Sundown Pastoral decided to renew the entire inventory of John Deere tractors, headers and planting equipment at “Keytah”.
Ritchie Bros. decided to add more stock to the already large sale to create a bumper marketplace for buyers and sellers.
Ritchie Bros. agricultural specialist Brandon Murray, who lives in Moree, said the town was ideally situated to bring together sellers and bidders from across Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.
The giant sale also set another record for auctioneers Ritchie Bros. as it was the first time more than half of its bidders registered to take part online instead of attending in person.
Dale Spedding, Ritchie Bros. regional sales manager, said the high level of online and international interest had helped deliver the record-breaking result.
“The auction exceeded all of our expectations,” Mr Spedding said. “We thought the total figure would be about $8m but it ended up about a million higher.
“A key factor was the level of interest in the auction online. Even though there was a huge crowd of 1200 people on site, Ritchie Bros. registered more bidders online than in person.
“There was already healthy demand from Australian buyers, but bidders in New Zealand and the USA liked the prices they saw for machinery that is in high demand in those countries.
“Another big draw for bidders was that this was an unreserved public auction. They knew that if they made the highest bid the lot was theirs and that’s very appealing to buyers.”
Key auction results:
- 3 x 2015 JOHN DEERE 8370RT Track Tractor sold $252,500 + GST each
- 2016 JOHN DEERE 8320R MFWD Tractor sold $247,500 + GST
- 2007 CATERPILLAR 143H VHP Plus Motor Grader sold $200,000 + GST
- 2013 JOHN DEERE 8310R MFWD Tractor sold $172,500 + GST
- 1988 STEIGER TIGER KP525 Series IV 4WD Tractor sold $140,000 + GST
- 2011 CASE IH 340 MAGNUM MFWD Tractor sold $100,000 + GST
- 2014 JOHN DEERE 1720 MAXEMERGER 16 Row 12 m Planter sold $95,000 + GST
- 2012 JOHN DEERE 640D 40ft Draper Header sold $65,000 + GST
- 2008 JOHN DEERE 6130 MFWD Tractor sold $54,000 + GST
- 2010 MACDON (NH) 45 Ft Draper Header sold $50,000 + GST
