AN eclectic curation of vintage and antique Australian pastoral machinery and memorabilia will go to auction on 1 February.
Yvon Smythe and her late partner, Neil O’Callaghan, began the Manangatang Mallee Country Pickings museum collection with shearing plants and wool presses going in clearing sales during the droughts in 2006, as farmers sold up and moved on.
“A lot of the old machinery that was used has just disappeared, and someone has to preserve what is left because even my children had never seen a wooden wool press and they’re almost 40,” Ms Smythe said.
“If people aren’t brought up on a farm and they haven’t got them stored in the old sheds, kids don’t know how farming actually worked back in those days.
“There was so much stuff just thrown out and sent to scrappies when people sold up, even really nice machines.”
One of the oldest pieces in the collection is an old shearing plant on steel wheels that Neil bought near Horsham in 2006.
“It was 102 years old then, and was running the day he was bidding on it,” Ms Smythe said.
“It would still run but they gave him a magneto that starts the engine, but apparently that’s the first thing people put in their pocket, and he never told me where he put it.
“I did a lot of searching to find what it looked like, but I couldn’t find it.”
Now, Ms Smythe’s museum spans from genuine Koerstz wool presses and other farm equipment, to kitchen wares and household items from the era – everything that made Australia’s farming industry tick from the late 19th century.
“When Neil passed away from cancer in 2009, I was still in the searching phase, and when I got the museum up and running I was still buying things at garage sales – I’ve always sort of collected things,” she said.
“Everything was stored in sheds and barns at our farm in Ouyen, and when the farm got sold it took a few years to then build a shed at my family farm in Manangatang and cart it all across.
“My brother and a few really good mates from Ouyen helped me cart it all across, otherwise I would still be moving it.
“My brother and I sorted it all and displayed it, we spent a lot of long hours and late nights and early mornings just setting the museum up, I quite often would still be in the shed at 2am sorting it all.
“I should have stopped when I brought it over, but then I catered for anyone, whether it was the farmer or the farmer’s wife.
“At clearing sales, you might have one thing in a box and a heap of other stuff, then you end up with spanners and horse shoes and rabbit traps, or kitchen stuff like mincers, kettles and bottles – I would always come home with bottles – and they just sat in the boxes.
“I thought, I’ll display it instead of leaving it.
“I’ve got antique sewing machines, washing machines, mix masters, kerosene lamps and lanterns, and more of the farm sort of stuff like spanners and motors.”
When the museum finally opened in 2018, Ms Smythe said it was a hit for collectors, car clubs and social groups from Wycheproof, Nandaly, Culgoa, Nullawil, Swan Hill and beyond.
“There was a lot of interest in a lot of the things I had there, and I loved listening to the oldies who came through saying ‘remember that’, and hearing the stories of some of the pieces,” she remembered.
Now the museum is shuttered, the family farm is on the market and Ms Smythe has retired to a smaller house block in Mildura, she hopes collectors will find something among her two decades of curating.
“They are all interesting pieces, I couldn’t pick just one thing to hold onto, I’ve got to pull the pin,” she said.
Auctioneer Martin Evans encouraged any and all collectors to peruse the listing before the auction goes live on 1 February.
The Manangatang collection can be viewed at the meauctions website.
