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Collection, Preservation and Display of Old Lawn Mowers

Next Cheffins Auction

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Trying to find out the dates when the next Cambridge Cheffins auction will be. Not sure which auction category the lawn mowers are included in. Is it the vintage & classic sale or the tractor & machinery? Cant find any lawn mowers on their website. Any help appreciated.

Keith Wootton Wed, 17/09/2014

Mowers are generally sold in the "vintage" auctions, held three times a year at Cambridge (actually in a village called Sutton, CB6 2QT). Next sale is Saturday 18 October.

Full list of auctions here

At the sales themselves, mowers are normally sold as part of the outdoor lots (there are separate concurrent indoor sales for small items, collectable, ephemera etc) along with stationary engines, tractors, implements and so on.

Catalogues are normally available online (searchable) around two weeks before the day of the sale.

The presence of mowers is inconsistent - sometimes there are quite a lot, sometimes just a few. Normally they are listed with very basic details and no photograph which makes it hard to judge whether it's worth a trip to the sale on the day (or making a commission bid). We raised this with them some time ago but they were unable/unwilling to help on the basis that vendors/sellers submit their own information when they enter a lot into the sale and only deliver their lots to the auction site a day or two before the sale when it's too late to amend any information. Many vendors do not know what they have and Cheffins cannot justify any/much time to carry out further research because the commission they make from the relatively low sale prices of mowers makes it uneconomical on their part. 

Despite this almost everyone I know who has visited the sale at one time or another has eventually managed to find a mower to add to their collection.

brummy_joe Sun, 05/10/2014

I was thinking of going but spent my pocket money on a 10" chain drive Multum which needs a touch of work. It also has a lot of history behind it and I will contacting the National Trust and the British Pteridological Society in due course to try and find some pictures on it in action.

hillsider Mon, 06/10/2014

First of all well done in finding a 10 inch Multum in Parvo for pocket money, I wonder how many folk were reaching for Google when they read Pteridological.

​Ray.

And yes I looked it up.

 

brummy_joe Sun, 12/10/2014

Thanks Ray! It was pocket money plus the sale of a 12" Patent Chain Automaton, but I think I have a good one. Looks like it was bought for, and used at, Sizergh Castle and has a family connection to the Victorian Fern Craze.... more info if and when I uncover it.

 

Joe