Roy Teitsworth’s voice carried across the fields on May 13 as E.J. Freyburger Earthmoving equipment was auctioned off. Many bidders came because they knew Freyburger, who is an active 87 years old, had always taken excellent care of his equipment, which he was using right up until the auction date. There were online bids as well.

“We were happy to work with E.J. Freyburger to auction their equipment,” said Teitsworth. “We have long had a relationship with their organization, so while we were sad to hear they were going out of business, we were glad they choose us to conduct their auction. Initially, we were concerned that the auction was a little late in the season and many contractors may have already made their purchases for the year, but we were wrong. The total auction outperformed both our and the owner’s expectations by almost 50 percent. Even though we’ve been in business for more than 40 years, it can still be surprising to see how bidders respond to true, one-owner equipment. Particularly, the Cat 320C excavator [$79,000] and the ’98 Peterbilt road tractor [$47,000] sold for prices much higher than expected. The Freyburgers prided themselves on meticulous care of their equipment and their efforts over the years to maintain their machinery to the highest standards paid off auction day.”

Smaller items also got a lot of attention, including hundreds of items gathered after many productive years moving earth. These included chain saws, surveying tools, water pumps, steel and plastic culvert pipe, and many links of big log chains and slings.

For attendees like Frank Scheiberdale, who has a dairy herd in Perry, the auction provided a chance to quickly replace his manure hauling truck that had overturned and been totaled just a few days before. Scheiberdale had his eye on a 1990 Peterbuilt, a one-owner tractor truck with approximately 46,000 miles on it.