With farmers focused on preparing for seeding a new season's crop, second-hand combine harvesters are supposed to be notoriously hard the sell at this time of year.
But Kalannie farmer Jordie McCreery proved that theory wrong at the Arrow family's Marlow Farming clearing sale on its 7328 hectare 'Marlow' property between Koorda and Beacon, near Mollerin Rock, on Thursday last week.
Mr McCreery won a bidding dual with another local farmer to claim top item of the sale, a 2019 John Deere S760 header with 2400 engine hours and 1860 rotor hours, autosteer, StarFire 6000 guidance, 12.2 metre JD 740 front and comb trailer, for $300,000.
He said his purchase, which appeared to be in very good condition, would replace an older John Deere S670 header he used last harvest.
"Basically, the header we are using is older and has double the hours on it, so this is an upgrade for us," Mr McCreery said.
"The repayments on this should be about the same as my parts bill for the old one.
"I'll have to work out whether I sell the old one or run two (headers) - it will depend on the market, the season and how much rain we get."
The Marlow Farming clearing sale was also notable in that farmer Graham Bookham attended and bought his second Ausplow Auseeder DBS D-300 seeding bar within a fortnight.
As reported in Farm Weekly last week, Mr Bookham and son Stephen, who farm to the west of Wongan Hills, had paid $180,000 for an Ausplow seeding rig - 15.2m bar with split boots and tow-between Multistream air seeding cart - at a Pindar clearing sale the week before.
At the time Mr Bookham explained he was destocking his farm and planned to add a further 1000ha to his cropping program this season, hence purchase of an extra seeding rig.
However, he admitted the 18.2m DBS D-300 seeding bar, set up with double shot and liquid, he bid $215,000 for as second top item last Thursday, was a speculative purchase.
"I'll probably sell it on, I know the dealers can't get them (seeding bars) at the moment and there's people wanting them," Mr Bookham said.
Mr Bookham did not bid for the Simplicity 1700 air seeding cart with liquid tank, which was sold as a separate lot to the seeding bar and nor did most other farmers. Bidding for it stalled at $100,000 and the 2017 unit was passed in.
Third top item was a 2003 15.2m Grizzly 128 Heavy West Coast disc plow in good condition, which sold for $90,000 to Apache Investments, Merredin, with a representative bidding by phone via Nutrien Ag Solutions' Kellerberrin agent Rex Luers.
Apache also bought 30 tonnes of Bannister oats at $610/t.
A 7000 litre 2016 Beverley Hydra Boom trailed boomsprayer with TeeJet-equipped 36m boom doubled its price to $56,000 after a series of competitive bids and was claimed by PW & GP Milroy, Pithara, but a 26t Wongan Steel chaser bin attracted only a single bid of $15,000.
Marlow Farming's tractor fleet generated some interest with phone bidders competing with in-person bidders for the two newer and bigger John Deere units.
The 2006 JD 9520T tracked tractor with 9750 hours and StarFire 3000 guidance sold for $66,000 to S & A Kelly, Moora, who also paid $5000 for an old Stormor mother bin, while a phone bidder claimed the 2009 JD 8225R four-wheel-drive tractor with 8821 hours and StarFire 6000 guidance, for $58,000.
A battered old Chamberlain Super 70 tractor with dual rear wheels sold for $1200 and another old Chamberlain front-end loader with forks sold for $1000, but an old Zetor tractor failed to get a bid.
A vintage Cranvel mobile crane sold for $500, an old Malcolm Moore grader for $50 and an old seed cleaner for $250.
While a tandem drive Detroit Diesel-powered 2012 Freightliner Coronado prime mover with 586,000 kilometres showing, was top truck - bought by D & WD Kelly, Wongan Hills, for $58,000 - a 1986 V Series 1422 Mercedes Benz truck and tandem skel trailer attracted most interest.
The old Mercedes V8 was started up by numerous prospective buyers before the sale began and eventually sold for $13,000 to Herbert Trading Trust bidding by phone from Esperance.
Herbert Trading also paid $25,000 for a five-in-one Cole bin on a tandem semitrailer.
A Freightmaster triaxle lead tipping grain trailer sold for $42,000 and the triaxle second trailer and tandem bogie sold to a different buyer for $17,000, while a third buyer paid $9500 for a triaxle semitrailer.
Another prime mover, a Scania 142M, went for $5000, but a 1991 Scania 93M with a Marshall 850TM Multi Spread spreader on the back was passed in.
A set of straight portable sheep yards in good condition went for $16,000, two poly 'cup and saucer' tanks and troughs for $1700 and $1800 and three Advantage sheep feeders for between $1400 and $2000.
A neat 2012 John Deere 8235R tractor put up for sale by outside vendor Adam Storer was passed in.
Judi Arrow, speaking on behalf of other Marlow Farming principals - her sisters Penny Arrow and Kim Nancarrow who were at the sale and brother Stephen and father John (known as Jack or 'Bung' Arrow) who recently turned 91 and could not attend - said the clearing sale brought "mixed emotions" for the family.
"Our grandfather John Bernard Arrow came here on June 7, 1926, as a young surveyor and chose this land for his farm," Ms Arrow said.
"He had an old car and lived in a tent while he set the farm up, he died at Tobruk in World War II," she said.
"On the other hand, the locals have turned one on for us today and we are really pleased to see so many people come along to support us and our clearing sale."
Ms Arrow said it was likely most of 'Marlow' - named by her grandfather after a club on the Thames River where he had rowed in the British summers before emigrating - would be leased out, but the family expected to retain a portion.
Nutrien Ag Solutions' Rex Luers was pleased with the attendance and 163 bidder registrations.
"For a sale a long way out it was very well-patronised," Mr Luers said.
"We had three bidders from interstate, but that's been pretty normal for the last three sales we've (Nutrien Ag Solutions, Kellerberrin) had and each of the other guys on the phone today were guys we've sold stuff to in the past month.
"Big machinery with low hours is what they (interstate buyers) are really chasing, but we had some action today on the bigger machinery with more hours and one guy (from interstate) was actually successful."
