Attracted to tractors, meet collector Bill Shanley

Some collect stamps, spoons, or salt and pepper shakers, but Bill Shanley can’t store his collectibles in a book or case; he needs a whole farm! In his collection, Bill houses 180 tractors on his property at Bunyan in rural NSW, near Cooma.

He remembers starting life on his father’s property near the Eucumbene Dam in the NSW Snowy Mountains before moving to the property Bill still owns in Bunyan, taking with them the draft horse and cart.

They got by for a while with the animal helping with the brunt of the work. However, Bill’s father realised they needed something more powerful after the horse and cart tipped while they were installing fence posts on a hill.

“My father hired a tractor for two pounds a day in 1959. My father had a go at driving the tractor. I was 11 and I said ‘I’ll have a go’, and the bloke who owned it said ‘you’re doing better than your father’,” Bill smiles.

As well as making hay on his farm, Bill runs sheep and cattle. For a time, he also travelled the country showing horses.

He says that was his first life; the second began about 30 years ago when he started collecting tractors. The first one Bill bought was the same model that made him fall in love with tractors as a young boy.

“Before that, I had fast cars and wild women, then I gave them away and started collecting tractors,” he smiles.

Laughing with his wife, Moya, Bill says she has always been all right with the collection but isn’t interested in going on trips in the truck to collect any of them.

“I used to bring her a rose to get back in the door, then we got too many roses in the garden, so instead of bringing a rose home, I had to bring a diamond. I only did that once,” he says.

According to Bill, WA is a hot spot for tractors where he can often find rarer models. He believes it’s because WA has so much farming land, a rare or special tractor will just be left out in a field. He does have criteria for any tractor he purchases.

“John Deeres are probably my favourite and the most collectible, especially the older ones. The Chamberlains are Aussie made; I have all the orange ones.”

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Jessica Cordwell