Albertan puts massive historic military collection up for auction

It's taken decades for Arlon Bauer to amass his collection of military vehicles, rifles and other paraphernalia, but now he's run out of room to store items at his acreage west of Calgary, so he's downsizing.

"You know, if I was a multimillionaire, if I'd won that $70,000,000 (lottery), I could just carry on," he said. "But it's also space, you've got to be able to store it, it's got to be looked after."

His collection started after visiting a gun show where he picked up a few pieces and it's grown from there. Bauer figures he's spent more than $200,000 over the years acquiring historic military pieces.

While he's a collector, his main goal is to rescue items so they can be preserved for future generations.

"It's harder on me to watch them deteriorate," he said. "I didn't buy them to hoard them to make a fortune, I bought them to preserve them, and a lot of the trucks out in the yard – like the Canadian Military (vehicles) – came from Stan Reynolds' collection."

Bauer is also retiring after almost 50 years from his career as a general contractor and is auctioning off all his work tools. 

"I'm getting up there," Bauer said. "I could still do (vehicle restorations) but I can see in another year or so I might not be able to do what I need to do to preserve them."

Holly Kugler is hosting the unreserved auction at Frank McInenly Auctions near Strathmore, named after her father when he started the business in 1967.

She and her team have catalogued all the items so they can be posted for the online auction opening Oct. 29 and running until Nov. 1.

"The best thing that dad ever said is the best appraisal value is selling it by auction," she said. "Because anybody can look at something and to you or I it might be worth $200 or $2,000 as an appraisal value, but for somebody who actually collects them, they know the true value."

Kugler has had inquires from all across the country from potential bidders and says the timing for the sale so close to Remembrance Day is appropriate.

"It's a really good time of year because of Remembrance Day," she said. "It's that time of year that we remember those that fought for our freedom and this is history, you can't just make this stuff anymore."

Bauer says he loves finding items for his collection and spends a lot of time on the internet looking for parts and pieces to add to it, but says it's time to share what he's found with others who have a similar passion.

"I love the stuff, but when I make a decision that these should go, I'm a pretty realistic person, it doesn't really bother me," he said. 

Bauer says money from the sale will be used to restore his remaining collection of military vehicles that he uses in parades and for various fundraisers in the province.

To learn more about the auction you can visit the Frank McInenly Auctions' website.