Throw bids into the bargain

By Danny Buttler
A CLEARING sale is part of every farm. Whether it’s a rusty tool that’s just perfect for a particular job or an almost new tractor bought at a fraction of the retail price, the bounty of thousands of on-farm sales is spread across the yards and sheds of properties throughout Australia.
It’s a ritual that is more than just a bargain hunter’s paradise.
The clearing sale is part of the fabric of country life that offers farmers the chance to socialise, catch up on the local gossip or just have a sticky beak at a neighbour’s backyard.
Les Ingram has been to more of these sales than he cares to remember.
The Alex Scott and Staff auctioneer is the man knocking down everything from rolls of barbed wire to a kitchen table that’s seen more roast dinners than he’s had roast dinners.
Anyone who has been to one of these frenetic, arduous and often amusing Friday or Saturday outings will know that it’s not a job that most of us could handle.
Hours of continual talking, a sharp mind to keep up with the bidding and the ability to keep the sale bubbling along takes a special type of personality.
But for Les, the key ingredient is a desire to do the job.
“I love it,” he said.
“It’s just the challenge of getting the best you can for the client.”
You can read that “challenge” another way … trying to get the bidders to put their hand in the air as many times as possible on as many items as he can interest them in.
The key to boosting the sale price is chemistry with the crowd and, perhaps most importantly, knowing what is going under the hammer.
“It all comes back to knowing the value of what you are trying to sell, whether it’s pigs, cattle, sheep, goats or an old plough,” he said.
“You need a general knowledge built up over years and you have to back your judgement.”
But even the best are sometimes baffled by the weird and wonderful farm implements that can be found in a box of miscellaneous items plucked out of the shed.
When that happens, there’s never a shortage of folks in the crowd more than happy to get one up on the auctioneer.
“You should have been about enough that you know what everything is and if you don’t, you can always ask someone,” he said.
“There’s always someone in the crowd who knows exactly what it is so if you get stumped someone will tell you.”
Growing up on a Bairnsdale farm (he still owns a property down that way), Les has 56 years of experience of life on the land and the tools that are needed to live it.
Add to that stints in rural Queensland and in Victoria’s western district and the laid-back auctioneer has probably seen everything that the clearing sale crowd has to offer.
In recent years he has noticed the eBay crowd in greater numbers, looking for a bargain they can flog off over the internet.
But the biggest change has been Big Brother sticking his nose over the fence and placing more and more regulations on what is being sold.
“The latest thing, the past 12 to 15 months, has been the OH&S laws, they have become harder and harder,” Les said.
“Any practical implements, we have to go through and categorise them as to what they are.
“We have to say if they are in top order, fair order or scrap and label them as such.”
It means more work in what is already a massive job in sorting out hundreds of items and estimating their worth. But make no mistake, Les isn’t complaining about his job.
Whether it’s a freezing day spent in a windswept Gippsland paddock or flogging animals at the sale-yards, he loves every minute of it.
“You have to enjoy what you are doing or you wouldn’t do it … the money’s not the best and it’s long hours, so you really have to love it.”