Vale Tony Fountain

Haesley Cush


This week I attended the memorial of real estate industry legend Tony Fountain. Tony was a larger than life industry character who travelled our vast country wielding his auction gavel and sharing his sharp wit at property and stock auctions wherever he could get an earn. He was just as comfortable calling auctions in a cattle yard as he was entertaining the crowds at property auctions in Double Bay.


Mum had told me many stories about Tony’s hilarity growing up and his name was mentioned daily by my mentor Phil Parker, but I didn’t really get to meet Tony properly until about 2004 when we both held the positions of chief Auctioneer in our respective states. Tony in NSW and me in Queensland.


The stories of his impact on Ray Whites development and growth were legendary. In 1988 Tony called one of our first in room auctions in Double Bay in Sydney, selling eight out of nine under the hammer. By the third lot of the night Tony started to get comfortable and unfortunately confident in his new surroundings. He was originally a stock auctioneer and from the bush he bought that typical larrikin charm. So with the comfort of two previous sales in the bag he decided to start to roll out some of his one liners to the high society Eastern Suburbs crowd “C’mon folks, bid me up now, money is like horse manure, you’ve got to spread it around to get the effect”. This bought shock to the corporate staff and the surprise of the agents but more importantly it bought laughter from the crowd was the beginning of the Fountain Dynasty in NSW.


Tony took in-room auctions to Indonesia and trained a team of female auctioneers to conquer their property market. This leadership was a crucial brick in the wall that has lead to Ray White’s number one position in Indonesia.


Tony’s passing at only 72, leaves behind him 3 children, 4 ex-wives and a swag of stories that will be shared for many years. When speaking with his son at the funeral he remarked that when he hears auctioneers on the TV or sees them online he will regularly hear them rolling out one-liners straight out of his dad's playbook.


The memorial was held in Bowral NSW and was attended by roughly 400 auctioneers, stock and station agents, real estate agents and family and friends. With heads of companies and auctioneers all sharing a yarn the day was finished with an auction by his understudy Mal Campbell and Peter Matthews telling the chronological story of Tony’s life through an auction taking the years as bids. Starting with an opening bid of 1945, the year Tony was born and the hammer finally falling for 2018 the very sad year that we say goodbye to a great Aussie bloke.