Furphy auction: Collector spends $26,000 on tank treasure

A FURPHY tank auctioned on Saturday in Echuca Village fetched $26,000 while the sale of Furphy tanks and ends made more than $113,000 for a long-time collector.

Record talk: Buyer Josh Powles, agent Paul Durden and seller Fred Bridgewater (front).

A FURPHY tank that fetched $26,000 at an auction of tanks and ends could be a new record.

Collector Josh Powles’ successful bid doubles the $13,000 he spent on a 1930 Furphy tank with pump in Albury about eight years ago, which he believed to be the previous record.

The auction made more than $109,000 on Furphy tanks and ends alone.

“Finally” was the word that came to Mr Powles’ mind when the hammer went down on the tank he was bidding for on Saturday.

“They took a very long time to knock it down,” he said, but he had prepared himself “for that sort of price”.

The collection belonged to Fred Bridgewater, of Echuca Village, who had been collecting Furphys since the 1960s.

Mr Powles, from Mildura, purchased a tank with both ends manufactured in about 1978-79, he said, and while there was no production numbers, “rumour has it only 13 of those ends were made”.

“It’s very hard to actually tell how rare something is, but it is the only one of that era I’ve seen auctioned since I started collecting 18 years ago,” he said.

Adam Furphy, managing director at J Furphy and Sons and great-great-grandson of its founder John, said $26,000 was a “remarkable” figure and “certainly from my point of view we’ve not heard of anything higher than that — or even near it”.

Kevin Hicks Real Estate agent Paul Durden said the sale was a “great outcome” for the Bridgewaters.

In all 25 Furphy ends and tanks sold for $109,210; two 1998 commemorative Furphy tank ends sold for $10,000 and $10,500 to separate bidders.

Mr Powles grew up in Katamatite and started collecting Furphy tanks and ends when he was a teenager — before he worked for the Shepparton-based company for nearly eight years.

He said his collection now included six complete tanks and 22 different ends. He said there were 24 different writing designs for the ends made, but he had little hope of purchasing the two ends he needed to complete his set.

“I do know of the others, but they’re in collections as such,” he said.

“I think Barry Jones, the auctioneer (from Kevin Hicks), summed it up very well. He said once this auction has been, and all these items from this collection have been dispersed into more collections, they’re not going to be sold again for a long, long time. So unless a big collector sells up, there’s little hope of coming across these other two.”