Auction of a lifetime brings those from far and wide

Courtesy photo Dennis Gearhart (seated on tractor) is surrounded by family, some of which traveled from Iowa, to take part in the sale of Dennis’ 50-year collection of tractors and farm implements. This group shot was taken before the sale started.

By Doug Schroder

Editor

STATELINE – When Meridian Implement owner Dennis Gearhart decided to sell off his nearly 50-year collection of tractors and farm implements, he knew it would be quite an undertaking. Luckily for him he had his family and employees to help out. They spent months preparing for the auction by getting things all catalogued and then finally moved out onto the business grounds for display before the auction.

Family members even came in from Iowa in the days before the auction to be there for this once in a lifetime event, so it sort of became a family reunion for the Gearharts also.

I was able to catch up with Dennis’ son, Mike, on the Friday before the sale, and he showed me around and talked about some of the items for sale. There were many items that were in good running shape, but there were also the items from the bone yard that would provide parts or a project for someone willing to take on such a task.

“We wanted to do this now, rather than at a later time when we might not all be here to see it,” Mike stated as we walked amongst the sale items.

Besides having tractors and tractor parts for sale, there was also a nice collection of vintage snowmobiles and garden tractors. In addition there were some horse drawn implements up for auction. Altogether there were over 350 items for sale.

One item in particular caught my eye. It was a John Deere implement of some sort. When I asked about it Mike said he’d have to get Dennis to answer that question. As it turned out the implement was a power plant made for the Amish in the 1940’s. The power plant was built with steel wheels. The Amish wouldn’t by it if it had rubber tires. This fact was confirmed at the sale on Saturday as some Amish farmers from Platteville, WI, were checking out the power plant.

When asked which item was first in his collection, Dennis replied with, “Oh, I’m not sure.”

When the auction day came on Saturday people started pouring in before the auction started at 10 a.m. People came from far away places such as Grant and Marshall, MI; Skippak, PA; Rye, CO; Holley, NY; and Troy, OH. All in all there was just over 420 registered bidders, with over 450 cars in the parking lot and an additional 50 trucks with trailers and semis parked at Roy Gayle.

The auction was also online with bids coming in from far away places like Sweden and Belgium. Within the US online bids came in from Texas, California, Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania.

The sale got over at a little after 3 p.m. Dennis and his family members watched the sale the whole time and were happy to see the happy bidders go home with their newly acquired items.