Britannia AuctionsCollective auctions and single item consignments in Middlesbrough
Contractors on Teesside tool up for a shutdown and tool down after it. That leaves welding sets, pipe bevellers, compressors, lighting towers and test pumps in yards across Riverside Park and Skippers Lane that nobody needs until the next turnaround, if then. A plant hire firm at Cannon Park has two breakers off the fleet. A fabricator has a positioner from a job that finished in the spring.
These are single lots, and a single lot does not justify a sale of its own. What it needs is a shared catalogue. Our collective auctions run online on a regular cycle with lots from many vendors, so one compressor from a Teesside yard sits next to a hundred other lots, in front of the same audience as a full dispersal.
You deliver, or collection can be arranged, and the lot sells with a viewing day before the close.
What the process plants leave in the contractor yards
Chemical and process work runs on outages. A contractor brings kit to site for six weeks, the plant restarts, and the kit goes back to the yard. Some of it was hired, some bought for the job, and the bought items are the ones that end up surplus. Welding sets, induction heaters, torque tools, pipe stands, bolting equipment and calibrated test gauges are the usual lots.
Steel fabrication and offshore firms send similar items in ones and twos, and sometimes a heavier piece such as a rolling machine. Scrap and recycling operators send attachments, magnets and the odd shear.
The trades that use this equipment are the ones around you. Fabricators in Stockton, Billingham and Hartlepool are close enough to attend a viewing day, and bidding runs online and is open to buyers from any part of the country. Test equipment is judged partly on its calibration status, so send the certificates with the lot and tell us what has lapsed.
Checking the lift before the lorry is booked
The estates along the Tees were laid out for heavy plant, with wide roads, hard standing and yard cranes on many sites. That does not settle what one machine needs, so we check the approach and turning space, the surface, the door, the floor and the handling equipment available, and we agree who does the lifting before anything is booked.
What we find decides the route. A lot can be collected and sold from our premises where that is agreed, with storage and a set viewing day. A heavy item that would cost more to move twice is catalogued in the yard, isolated by a competent person, and collected once by the buyer after the sale with their own transport, on a day you agree.
Small items go in the van with everything else. Tell us about known faults, lapsed certificates and missing parts before we list. A disclosed fault is described in the catalogue and the buyer bids with that knowledge.
What these sales can include
- Single machine tools
- Individual vans and pickups
- Compressors and generators
- Welding equipment
- Woodworking machines
- Hand tools and power tools
- Office furniture and IT equipment
- Catering equipment from a single kitchen
- Small plant and attachments
- Garden and grounds machinery
- Trailers
- Workshop consumables and stock
How a collective sale works
A collective auction is a regular online timed sale made up of lots from many vendors. Each vendor's lots are identified in the catalogue by lot number only. Buyers see one catalogue and bid across it, so a small consignment sits in the same sale as the larger ones.
Your lots are photographed and listed alongside the others. Bidding runs online, with lots closing in sequence on the sale date. Each lot is offered as seen under the auction terms, with buyers expected to inspect before bidding. The buyer pays the hammer price plus a buyer's premium, with VAT charged where it applies and shown separately.
After the sale, buyers pay and collect within the collection window. We account to you from cleared funds once it has closed and the sale is reconciled, less the agreed commission and any agreed costs.
The collective auctions and single item consignments page covers minimum viable value, at our premises or at yours, what to bring and what to tell us, timescales and unsold lots.
Questions about selling in Middlesbrough
- Our compressor came off a site at Wilton and still has the plant owner's asset tag on it. Can we sell it?
Only if it is yours to sell. Kit that was bought by the contractor for the job is the contractor's to consign, and an old tag is a label we remove or describe. Kit that was supplied by the plant owner or hired in is not, and we will not list it without proof of title. Send us the purchase invoice or the hire return paperwork with the photographs and we will sort it out before the lot is entered.
- Do scrap and recycling firms bid in a Middlesbrough sale, and can we stop a machine going at scrap value?
Scrap and recycling firms are part of the audience on Teesside, and they judge a worn machine differently from a fabricator who intends to use it. We cannot promise what either will bid. What we can do is describe the machine accurately, give you a view on likely interest before you commit, and agree a reserve with you. If you have a figure you will not go below on a main item, set it, and we hold it.
More questions about single items and small lots
Related services
Guides
- How a commercial asset auction works
A stage by stage account of an online timed auction for business assets. It covers the asset schedule, cataloguing, viewing days, how bidding closes, buyer's premium and VAT, collection and how you get paid.
- What happens to unsold lots
Not every lot sells, but the site still has to be cleared. This guide covers why lots go unsold, private treaty after the sale, lowering or removing the reserve, a later sale, scrap and WEEE recycling, and what disposal costs.