Jane Mayne
Cootehill Mart is preparing for a bumper October Bank Holiday Machinery & Plant Auction on the last Saturday of the month. They already have a very large entry in, so this is anticipated to be the mart’s biggest auction yet.
Mart Managing Director Steven Drury notes that current buyers are no longer mainly locals, as the use of LSL Auctions is bringing in bidders from further counties. “We certainly have bidders from all provinces. Even from Northern Ireland we have quite a few bidders online. Timed auctions have really picked up since about May, since I think people sort of know more about the timed auctions and how it works – so we’re seeing more and more sales happening because of the timed auction that’s happened after the live auction,” he says.
So, has the implantation of LSL machinery software added value to their auctions? “Oh, absolutely yes. It’s a big timesaver is the main one. The lot pre-entry system is a godsend for sales. It saves all the manhours not having to enter lots manually on the office side.”
“Machinery is different to cattle and sheep in that its nearly all online. People that’s inhouse is getting smaller and the online is getting bigger, so I would say that that is probably an important feature, so the LSL software is probably more important from that point of view more now than ever because of that. So, without that, online machinery auctions wouldn’t be successful at all.”
He goes on to say: “People do their main view during the week before the auction, and then they’ll go home and bid online. Whether it’ll be in the live auction or the timed auction.”
Steven also notes that lot numbers “grew until about summertime, and now sales are rising again. Summertime would just be a traditionally quiet time, but it’s building up again.”
As such Cootehill’s Machinery & Plant Auctions are going well. “We’re quite happy. Again, because we’re such a new business on all the fronts we only opened up 18 months now really, that we sort of need to get a person that is dedicated to promoting the auction in general, so that we’re hoping to do is to really push it forward in the next couple of months to get someone dedicated to manage that.”
Have any specific items been of major interest this year? “Well, we would have got a lot of smaller items back at the start, but what we tried to phase out was sort of the very low value items. So, we range from anything from tools to tractors, to transport boxes to trailers, to literally anything plant or farm related.”
Has he been impressed by any particularly memorable machinery over time: “No not really, I suppose the tractors sell very well, even you know any type – small to big sells quite well.” And do contemporary buyers prefer more modern machinery, or is there still a big demand for vintage equipment? “Yes, the oldest tractor we have sold was a 1950 Ford petrol-driven tractor, up to a 2016 Massey Ferguson.”
One entry of note coming up at Cootehill Mart’s Bank Holiday Machinery & Plant Auction on Saturday, 29th October, is a JCB 85x digger, which is ideal for farmers, builders and contractors. It’s in excellent working order.
Steven expects the auction to be a bit bigger than the last 4 or 5 sales. “So, we’re really pushing and promoting this sale that’s coming up,” he concludes.
The start time is 11:00.
Pre-book your lots here. To view the catalogue when in hand, see here.
Register to bid here.
Contact Cootehill Mart Machinery Auctions at: 086 179 0929, 087 944 4895 or 049 555 5362.
