ESTON, Sask. – On a hot, windy weekend, the freshly cut wheat field served as a parking lot for hundreds of cars.
Licence plates, heavy with dust and grasshopper bits, showed Saskatchewan, Alberta and Ontario owners, with a sprinkling from American states – Kentucky, Arizona, Montana, Oklahoma.
The Schneider farm outside of Eston was hosting one of the largest auctions of antique equipment ever held on the Prairies. The Aug. 2-5 event is just the start.
There are six more days of auctions to come, on the Labour Day and Thanksgiving weekends.
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Fred Schneider, who died earlier this year, left a massive collection of prairie machinery, tools and pieces of everyday life. Spread over 25 acres are more than 250 tractors, steam engines and other rusting equipment.
His “museum” included the former Brock train station, the Glidden fire hall, the Madison general store, the Newburg school and various barns and bunkhouses.
The family hired Lloyd’s Auction to help dispose of the collection. While auctioneer Hector Lloyd said the family did not want him to divulge the value of the first three-day sale, he said it was good, with prices better than anticipated.
The weekend drew more than 1,000 buyers, he said. It started Saturday at 9 a.m. with item 1 – a box with assorted advertising cups, glasses and steins – and ended on time Monday Aug. 4 at 5 p.m. with item 1,168, an elevator jack shaft.
Lloyd said at one point his voice gave out, but a hot water and lemon juice drink made by the wife of one of his clerks restored his patter.
Some of the buyers were representing museums, but Lloyd said one buyer who came from Belgium missed out on getting the machine he was after.
Each sales day has a theme. The next event in September will see the train station, caboose and contents sold, plus Model Ts and stationery engines, “about 100 of those.”
The October sale will be horse-related items.
