Unusual auction to offer relics galore

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This article was published 29/09/2014 (4069 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

STE. ROSE DU LAC — Depending where you look, there’s a snowplane, a 1920 Model T that still reaches almost 90 kilometres per hour, a home invention called a gravity wheel, and a pedal sewing machine.

There are assorted autoboggans (precursor to the snowmobile), an explosive depth charge but without the TNT (the Royal Canadian Navy used to roll them off the decks of warships in hopes of destroying an enemy submarine), and a 1906 Cloverleaf manure spreader that still spreads.

It will be one very unusual — and very big — farm auction Oct. 4, south of Ste. Rose du Lac.

It’s the private museum — and Inspector Gadget world — of Albert Thompson, who has curated the Turtle River Relics museum on his farm for 13 years, but has been a collector for more than 30.

“It’s one of the most unique collections you will find in Western Canada, and one of the best-kept collections” in terms of being stored inside barns and sheds, said Larry Garton, of Garton’s Auction Services. And just about everything still runs, thanks to Thompson’s mechanical acumen.

Albert and Pat Thompson, in their 70s, are leaving the farm next year for a condo unit in Ste. Rose du Lac, about 270 km northwest of Winnipeg. Albert said he wants to move his collection before it becomes a burden to his children.

There’s something for everyone: the serious collector, the eclectic collector, and the curio buyer.

Thompson’s specialty was preserving and restoring antique farm equipment. He has 14 antique tractors up for bid. The jewel may be his 1926 Rumley Model M 20-35. Rumley made superior tractors — heavier, stronger, better-built and more expensive — before it was bought by Allis Chalmers in 1931.

There’s a 1947 Studebaker M16 two-ton truck, with red cab, in mint condition with all the original mechanics and in running order. It has a coloured dashboard and steering wheel, and one of the first inside hood latches. The collection also includes Ste. Rose du Lac’s first fire truck, a 1948 Dodge.

The Model T was built on May 10, 1920, with the date stamped in the motor’s casting. Henry Ford inscribed all his Model T engines with the manufacturing date. This one is fully licensed for when Thompson feels like motoring around.

The 1942 Fudge snowplane, with a Tiger Moth engine and a propeller on the back, preceded snowmobiles. Roads weren’t plowed and cars weren’t winterized then, but you could travel cross-country in a snowplane. “The person who owned a snowplane was very popular, because plenty of babies were being born and there were health emergencies and accidents,” said Thompson.

He’s got 1958 and 1965 autoboggans, one that runs, plus a 1953 Husky Mobile snowmobile manufactured by Frank Smerch, who was originally from Ste. Rose, where he started manufacturing early snowmobiles under the name Husky Mobile Co. Thompson’s “husky” isn’t restored, however.

For people into something different, there’s a dry-land lighthouse that disassembles (built for his wife of 52 years, Pat, who made it her sewing room, with its elevated, 360-degree view of the Prairie landscape); an oil pump jack (a gag item); and his prized invention, the gravity wheel.

The gravity wheel is two giant water pipe reels, four metres high, with a seat welded between them. It has no torque. A small motor redistributes the driver’s weight forward, like on a playground swing, to make it run.

Yet in person, Thompson comes off as the sanest of people.

Garton has received calls about the auction from across Canada and the United States. He expects at least 500 people to show up in person for the auction, on Thompson’s farm just off Highway 5, south of Highway 68. For more details, go to gartonsauction.com.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca