Britannia AuctionsMachinery and engineering auctions in Plymouth
Plymouth's machine shops split into two very different trades. Along the water are the marine engineers and boat builders, with long bed lathes, radial drills, plate rolls and welding bays that have worked for decades. Up on Estover, Langage and Roborough are the advanced manufacturing and medical device firms, running sliding head lathes, small machining centres, wire eroders and inspection rooms that would not look out of place in a laboratory.
We sell both, and they are not sold the same way. The marine plant goes to the yards across the Tamar at Saltash and Torpoint and along the coast, and to dealers who know that a seventy year old lathe with a true bed is still a working machine. The precision plant goes to a national trade that bids online and sends a rigger.
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Sliding head lathes and the medical device trade
The medical device and precision firms around Estover and Langage run a class of machine that rarely turns up in a general engineering sale. Sliding head lathes for small turned parts, small five axis machines, wire eroders and the measuring equipment to hold tolerances that a jobbing shop never sees. The buyers are other precision shops, often a long way from Devon, and dealers who specialise in that kit.
Those buyers bid on detail. Bar capacity, number of axes, live tooling, bar feeder, control and hours are all listed, with the control screen and the tooling photographed. A machine that has run one product for years in a clean shop may carry few hours, and the control shows them.
Because the buyers are spread out, the online catalogue does more of the work here than the viewing day. We allow time in the bidding period for a buyer to send someone down or ask for a video of the machine running.
Riggers at the end of a long road
Plymouth is a long way from most of the country's machinery movers, and the cost of getting one here is part of every bid. So the collection window is agreed with that in mind. Heavy lots can share a collection day, and where several buyers have appointed the same mover we tell them, so a load can go back up the A38 together. Buyers still arrange and pay for the removal of their own lots.
The waterside sites need a check first. Yards on the Tamar and around Sutton Harbour can be tight, with a slipway on one side and a wall on the other, and a low loader cannot always stand where a lorry once did. We measure the gate and the turning space and put the answer in the catalogue.
Estover, Langage and Roborough are estate sites, checked in the same way, and the A38 takes a trailer to the M5.
What these sales can include
- CNC turning centres
- CNC vertical and horizontal machining centres
- Manual and toolroom lathes
- Milling machines
- Surface and cylindrical grinders
- Press brakes and guillotines
- Laser, plasma and waterjet cutters
- Bandsaws and cold saws
- Radial arm and pillar drills
- Welding sets and positioners
- Coordinate measuring machines
- Tooling, chucks and workholding
- Compressors and dust extraction
- Cranes, hoists and forklifts
Viewing, bidding and the buyer's premium
Machinery sales run as online timed auctions. The catalogue is published with photographs and specifications. Buyers register, view the machines on the viewing day, and bid online until the lots close. The sale is advertised to the engineering trade, and bidding is online and open to buyers across the UK and beyond.
The buyer pays the hammer price plus the buyer's premium. VAT is charged where it applies and shown separately on the buyer's invoice. Ask and we will go through the specifics for your sale. Where a buyer is overseas, they arrange their own export.
Machines are offered as seen under the auction terms, and buyers are expected to inspect before bidding, which is why the viewing day matters. Machines that can be run safely stay connected for the viewing day so your staff can demonstrate them where that is agreed, and everything else is isolated and left safe.
The machinery and engineering auctions page covers what the buyers want to know, what affects demand, reserves and estimates, removal and access, when a private sale beats an auction.
Questions about selling in Plymouth
- We are at the end of the line. Will buyers and riggers really travel to Plymouth?
For the right machine, distance counts for less than specification. There are few sliding head lathes or wire eroders on the market at any one time, and because bidding is online a buyer can bid first and appoint a mover afterwards. The marine and boat building trade in Saltash, Torpoint, Ivybridge and Totnes is near enough to view in person. What we do about the distance is offer a shared collection day and put enough photographs of each main machine in the catalogue that the trip is made once.
- Our workshop is on the water with a slipway and no proper yard. Can the machines be moved by road at all?
Usually, with planning. What a long bed lathe needs out of a waterside shed depends on its weight, its dimensions and the route, and a crane has to stand somewhere. We look at the site before anything is catalogued and describe the lorry access and the crane position to buyers so the rigger's quote is right first time. If the road route is impossible, the machine is sold on the basis that it goes out over the water, and we say so.
More questions about machinery auctions
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.
- Preparing machinery and equipment for sale
What to do before viewing day. Keep the machines that can be run safely available to demonstrate, isolate the rest, clean but do not repaint, find the tooling and manuals, and sort out access for removal.
- How used machinery is valued
Buyers pay for what a machine will do for them, less what it costs to get it out and running. This guide explains how make, hours, tooling, demand and removal cost feed a guide price, and why that price is not book value.