Sale Report. November 2011

I knew it was going to be a busy one..! Normally at the catalogue closing date we have circa 270-350 tractors entered but this month a whopping 437 had been consigned with dozens more promised. Entries in other section were equally as full and comprehensive and as the sale approached, expectations of a super sale were running high. Viewing day on the Sunday was well attended too and as the auction bell tolled at 10:30, the sale yard was heaving with a truly multinational crowd of punters eager to spend their hard earned Euros, pounds, dollars and dirhams on the 2700 lots assembled.

Unfortunately such eagerness and high hopes failed to translate into sales and purchases, not quite and my optimistic comments of “we may have an all time record on Monday” were disappointedly dashed - although a new record sale total for November was achieved....hooray.!

I don’t think it would take an Einstein to work out why perhaps things weren’t as sparky as hoped. Look at any newspapers front page and the headlines tell it all (and I don’t mean the latest X Factor gossip!). Euro crises and the apocalyptic financial outlook for the economically challenged “PIGS” countries dampened even the most positive outlooks and I think this adversely affected trade on Monday. Certainly Spain, one of the porker countries and main buyers of John Deere 6 and 7000 series machines were conspicuous by their conservative bidding and a number of our stronger more bullish buyers from both home and away were simply not present. On the positive side however, 53% of the 540 or so tractors sold and many vendors left thinking Christmas had come early and were more than happy with the day’s result as were the auctioneers themselves.

As always John Deeres were significant in number and the trade for such increased as the sale progressed. In fact any vendor who entered their tractors late bizarrely benefited from stronger trade as competition along the last tractor row revved up as darkness descended. 6920 and 6820’s were back a smidgen compared to last month but what was noticeable was the price differential between Power Quad and Auto Power transmissions. Basically Auto Powers are tough to shift and judging by the prices achieved, they need to be discounted by circa 20% compared to the PQ’s before any bidder is willing to raise a wary hand.

We had a few nice Fendts and many of these were chased well beyond their reserve prices. A small but nearly perfectly formed 250V vineyard is Cyprus bound for £7200, a more powerful and purposeful 820 Vario, 2008 in the year and showing 5300 hours nudged £50,000 and a 716 with over 11,000 hours made a respectable £20,000. I must admit I like Fendts and judging by the sales of such over the last 12 months, our customers do too as the number entered and sold has gradually risen and a number of buyers who concentrated purely on Deeres now also buy Fendts when the opportunity arises.

The frenzied activity with the 100, 200, 500 and 600 Masseys which we experienced last month was not quite mirrored in November but still over 70% of the 130+ examples sold. Cyprus, Lebanon as well as our ever faithful domestic exporters cleared up a majority of such and prices were very much in line with previous sales.

Bill Pepper. November 2011