Britannia AuctionsMachinery and engineering auctions in Reading
Behind the office parks there is still engineering. The trading estates on Loverock Road and Portman Road, the Robert Cort estate and the units along Basingstoke Road and Cardiff Road hold machine shops, vehicle repairers, fabricators and trade suppliers that most people driving past Green Park never see. Some of the technology firms keep a prototype shop with a machining centre, a lathe, a bandsaw and a 3D printer.
When one of those workshops closes, the plant goes to a market that is thin locally and deep nationally. There are fewer machine shops in Berkshire to absorb it than in the Midlands, so the sale has to reach the trade in Basingstoke, Newbury, Slough and Bracknell and the whole UK online.
We catalogue on site, sell online and manage the collection. Tell us what is in the workshop through the contact form.
Workshops behind the office parks
The engineering in the town splits into two kinds and they sell differently. Jobbing shops on the Loverock Road estates run manual and CNC lathes, turret mills, surface grinders, bandsaws and pillar drills, bought used and kept running for years. Prototype and development shops attached to the technology firms run late model machining centres, small CNC lathes, 3D printers and measuring equipment that has done very few hours.
The first kind has the broader market, because a small workshop anywhere can use it. The second has fewer possible buyers and more value in each machine, and for a single late model machine we will give you a view on whether private treaty or the auction suits it better.
Both are catalogued the same way. Make, model, year, control, hours where the control shows them, capacities and the tooling included, with photographs of the control screen and the ways. The M4 junctions are close to these estates, and access at each unit is checked before the catalogue is written.
A single machine or a whole unit off the M4
Plenty of sales in the Thames Valley are one or two machines rather than a shop. A firm has finished a project, or a workshop is being reduced to make room for offices. One machine gets the same catalogue entry as a shop full, and it goes into a wider machinery sale so it sits in a bigger catalogue.
A whole unit is the other case. The vehicle repairers and fitting shops around Portman Road and Theale hold lifts, presses, welding sets, compressors, diagnostic kit and racks of tooling, and those sales run on the usual pattern. Catalogue in a few days, sale online for a week or two with a viewing day, collection in a fixed window after it closes.
Junction 11 serves the south of the town and junction 12 serves Theale, and each unit is checked before the catalogue is written. The trade in Wokingham, Maidenhead, Bracknell and Henley is close enough to attend a viewing day.
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 Reading
- Our prototype shop has done very few hours. Does that show in the price?
It can, provided the buyer can see it. Low hours on a machining centre are worth showing, and the way to prove them is the hours counter on the control, the service record, the tooling and the condition of the ways and the spindle taper. We photograph all of that and put it in the catalogue with the machine's history. Where the evidence is there, a buyer prices it, and for a single machine a private treaty sale to a dealer is worth considering alongside the auction.
- The landlord is converting the unit and wants it clear at the quarter day. What if the sale overruns?
We plan a sale with a deadline from that date backwards. The sale closes with time to spare and the collection window is set to finish before the keys go back, and the shape of it turns on the lot count and the access. If a buyer misses their slot we chase them, and clearance of anything left at the end of the window can be arranged.
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.