Britannia AuctionsCollective auctions and single item consignments in Sheffield
A single lathe from a Don Valley toolroom is worth putting in front of buyers. So is a surface grinder, a bandsaw, a welding set from a fabrication shop in Attercliffe, or the compressor that has been running a small press shop in Darnall for twenty years. The trade in South Yorkshire still uses this equipment, and Rotherham, Barnsley, Chesterfield and Worksop are all a short trip from the viewing day.
What none of these items justify is a sale of their own. Our collective auctions solve that. We enter your machine alongside lots from other vendors and run the sale online, with the lot identified by number only. The buyer pays us, collects in an agreed window, and you are paid once the sale is reconciled from cleared funds.
Tell us what the machine is and where it stands. Heavy single lots need a different plan from a van or a box of tooling, and the plan starts with the floor it is bolted to.
Heavy single lots and the rigging question
Sheffield kit is heavy. A centre lathe or a horizontal borer from a toolroom weighs more than the van that brought the operator to work, and it does not go in a collective sale until we know how it leaves the building, so we ask for the weight, the floor, the door width and the route out first.
The Don Valley estates were built for this traffic, but the yard, the door and the floor still decide what one machine needs, and we check them at Parkway or Tinsley as anywhere else. Then there is a choice of route. The machine can be collected and sold from our premises where that is agreed, with a viewing day and handling equipment on hand. Or, where it is very heavy or still wired in, it can be catalogued in place, isolated by a competent person, and collected once by the buyer with their own mover. The second route avoids moving a ten tonne machine twice.
Smaller items from the same shop, such as tooling, chucks, measuring equipment and hand tools, travel in the same van run as any other lot.
Tooling, inserts and the rest of the shelf
The precision and toolmaking firms across the city produce a second kind of consignment: the shelf stock. Boxes of unused carbide inserts, taps, end mills, collets, vices and inspection equipment build up over years, and the next shop along uses exactly the same things. On their own they fall below the minimum value we need to catalogue a lot, so we group them. A tray of the same size taps is a lot. A single tap is not.
Woodworking and construction kit turns up too, from the packaging and building firms around Holbrook, and it goes in the same sale.
Machinists in Dronfield and across the city are close enough to view in person, and bidding is online for everyone else. Small tooling lots post easily, so distance is no barrier at the buyer's end, and what a lot makes depends on what is in it, how it is sorted and how it is described.
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 Sheffield
- Our press is on the first floor of an old works in Attercliffe. Is it still worth selling?
Possibly, but the lift comes first. A press on an upper floor needs a removal plan from someone qualified to make one, and the cost of that is set against what the press might make. We will ask for photographs of the machine, the stairwell or hoist door, and the road outside. Then we give you a view on value and a cost for getting it out, and you decide. Where the sum does not work, we say so.
- Can I sell one machine now and the rest of the workshop later?
Yes. Many Sheffield firms replace one machine at a time, and a collective sale is the right place for the one that has been replaced. When the whole shop closes later on, that is a different kind of sale and we plan it separately. Selling a single lot now does not commit you to anything else, and we will still be the same contact when the bigger job comes.
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.