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“If it had wheels, he loved it,” Maas said recently, as auctioneer Marty Higgenbotham, of Lakeland, Fla.-based Higgenbotham Auctioneers International, and others worked to prepare Slagle’s estate for an auction that will take place Oct. 30-31.

Slagle, a retired union plumber and World War II veteran, purchased a 20-acre farm a few miles east of Overbrook in 1985 and moved there from Lawrence. After moving to his farm, he continued buying and bartering for vehicles, machinery and other items, Maas recalled, and continued to add extensions and build to have places to put things.

Though Slagle died at age 91 in August 2014 and for the last year or so lived with Maas and her husband, she said, he had formerly worked on his vast collection daily. “He had a plan every day when he got up,” she said. “He ate his breakfast, and he could tell you exactly what he was going to do that day — what vehicle he was working on, he was going to pull tires or wheels off, or pull an engine — and he would do all that by himself.”

Higgenbotham, who has been in the auction business for 56 years, says he has never seen a collection as “eclectic” as Slagle’s. “Most collectors that we deal with usually have a focus,” he said, such as automobiles, tractors or early trucks. “This gentleman, he liked anything with wheels.”