Steam engines and rare vintage tractors on offer at The Richard Vernon Sale

The sale will take place on 3 June both online via www.cheffins.co.uk and on-site at Lutterworth, Leicestershire.

A well-known collector, Richard Vernon amassed over 200 lots of tractors, steam engines and implements over 30 years, with many sourced from throughout the UK, Europe and the USA.

The four steam engines on offer could potentially gross over £300,000 in total. These include a pair of Fowler BB1 ploughing engines, ‘Princess Caroline and Princess Jayne’, dating from 1918, which have an estimate of £120,000 - £140,000; a very early Victorian 1884 Fowler SC ploughing engine ‘Aethelflaed’, which has an estimate of £70,000 - £80,000, and a 1915 Fowler SC Class Colonial traction engine, which could be set to sell for £60,000 - £70,000.

The collection also includes a series of rare British and American vintage tractors, including The Grey 18-36, an unusual and valuable US-built tractor dating from the 1920s, which has an estimate of £20,000 - £30,000. Other highlights include a 1925 Peterbro’, a 1920 British Wallis, a 1926 Rumely Oil Pull 15-25, an International Titan 10-20, a Parret 12-25, a Huber Light 4 and a 1920 Sawyer Massey 11-22. These are offered alongside more common examples from the likes of Fordson, David Brown, Case and International.

Also available are a series of unusual and rare steam ploughing and cultivating tackle, implements and spares.

Richard Vernon, the late Richard Vernon’s son, commented: “My father learnt to drive a tractor at the age of 12 and his love of tractors and all things vintage continued throughout his life. He was known to have driven one of the tractors, a Fordson Major, all the way from Moreton Wood Farm in Shropshire to Cotesbach, which is around an 80-mile trip down the A5.

“His lifelong passion for tractors and steam engines went back to his boyhood years and, from a very young age, he started collecting model steam engines and building them from kits, with his passion, we believe, having started when he visited his grandmother in Stafford and used to watch the steam engines go along the train track at the bottom of the garden.

“His first engines were the pair of Fowler BB1s, which he bought and collected in 1981 from Cambridgeshire, which were then sold in the Cheffins dispersal sale in 1993. The funds from these enabled him to buy rarer examples and focus on more ambitious projects. In the same year, his passion for steam engines and tractors started to take him around the world, with purchases from overseas, including one directly from the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit.

“Similarly, the vintage tractors which dad collected, demonstrated his passion for all things unique and unusual, with his collection including over 50 examples at its peak, each of which had a wonderful history.

“Dad’s enthusiasm and ability to collect, preserve, maintain and get mechanical things working was outstanding, and a skill that not many possess. His efforts have undoubtedly preserved a unique corner of history and in the steam and tractor field he was very well known and respected all over the world.”

For more information, please visit www.cheffins.co.uk or call Cheffins auctioneers on 01353 777767.