A farmer who recently auctioned what’s thought to have been the UK’s largest private collection of vintage tractors is putting another set of historic farm machinery under the hammer.
Paul Rackham, of Camp Farm, near Thetford, Norfolk, is selling what’s considered to be the most complete group of vintage Ferguson tractors and implements in the world.
The Hunday Collection, which includes 73 tractors and 100 implements - along with other memorabilia and literature - is expected to fetch £400,000.
The collection also features a historically important and fully restored MK1 long wheel base Land Rover that was purchased new by Harry Ferguson Ltd and has a guide price of between £20,000 and £25,000.
The vehicle was the 13th long-wheelbase (107") Land Rover to roll off the production line and was supplied new to the ‘grey Fergie’ manufacturers in Coventry in November 1953. It is thought to have inspired the four-wheeled drive developments carried out by Harry Ferguson Research Limited.
The sale, which will be held at Mr Rackham’s farm near Roudham on Saturday, November 14, has been organised by Cambridgeshire auctioneers Cheffins and Suffolk’s Clarke and Simpson.
It is expected to attract a number of Ferguson enthusiasts from throughout the UK, Ireland, Europe, USA and beyond.
Oliver Godfrey, auctioneer at Cheffins, said: “A sale of such historical importance will create a huge amount of interest, particularly from Northern Ireland, which was Harry Ferguson’s birthplace, but also from the ever increasing number of Ferguson and Massey Ferguson enthusiasts around the world.
“The collection includes tractors from Harry Ferguson’s early collaborations with David Brown and Henry Ford, through to his own TE-20 models and later Massey Ferguson tractors.
“There are also several rare implements, including a replica tractor-mounted combine, a side-mounted baler and the ‘holy grail’ of Ferguson implements, an extremely rare game flusher which could fetch £10,000.”
Harry Ferguson, born at Growell, near Dromore, County Down, was the son of a farmer noted for his role in the development of the modern tractor.
The Hunday Collection was started by collector and agricultural entrepreneur John Moffitt in 1966. He opened a museum displaying a range of vintage tractors, engines and machinery in Northumberland in 1979.
Following the closure of the museum in 1989 and after retiring from farming in the early 1990s, Mr Moffitt continued to build his collection of Fergusons.
By 2000, he had amassed what’s thought to have been the most complete collection of Ferguson equipment ever assembled. By this time the collection included an example of every type of implement and virtually every variation of tractor – both Ferguson and its early Massey Ferguson successors.
Where no example of a machine existed, such as the Ferguson combine (which never went beyond prototype stage), Mr Moffitt had replicas made at great expense.
In 2004, with his health failing, he decided to sell the collection and it was bought by Mr Rackham and moved to his farm.
The 79-year-old, born in Peasenhall in Suffolk, has overhauled and renovated several of the tractors in the collection, which has featured in books, magazines, videos and DVDs.
He has also added a number of rare and significant examples of Ferguson and Massey Ferguson tractors and vehicles of particular historical interest. These include Harry Ferguson’s fully restored MK1 long wheel base Land Rover with original buff log book.
More than 1,700 people attended Mr Rackham’s previous auction, which featured over 180 rare and vintage tractors and raised more than £1.5m.
Mr Rackham has been the curator of the Hunday Ferguson Collection for more than 12 years but has decided to sell the collection so that he can focus on a new challenge.
