Britannia AuctionsMachinery and engineering auctions in Sheffield
Sheffield engineering runs heavy. Forges, press shops, tool rooms and precision machine shops fill the Lower Don Valley from Attercliffe out to Tinsley and the M1, and the plant inside them is bigger than you find in most cities. Large capacity lathes, horizontal borers, plano mills, cylindrical grinders and presses that have been on the same foundations for decades.
Size shapes the market. Big machine tools suit a smaller circle of dealers and heavy engineering firms, bids are placed online and the sale is open to buyers from any part of the country, and what a machine costs to remove is part of what it makes.
We catalogue on site, with the specifications and photographs that let a buyer in Rotherham or on the other side of the country decide whether to travel for the viewing. Then we run the sale online for a week or two and manage collection on fixed days. Tell us what is on the floor through the contact form.
Heavy plant out of the valley
A large machine tool sells on two things. Its condition and how easily it comes out. We deal with the first by cataloguing it properly. Make, model, serial number, year, capacity, control system, the tooling and accessories that go with it, and a note of any known faults. A horizontal borer with its table, its facing head and its full set of bars is a different lot from the machine alone.
We deal with the second by describing the site. Floor loadings, the crane capacity in the bay, the door height and where a low loader can stand. Many of the Don Valley estates were built for heavy traffic, and Parkway Industrial Estate and the Tinsley estates sit near junction 34, but the doors, the floor and the loading point are measured at each unit.
Bids are placed online and the sale is open to buyers anywhere in the UK, and the trade in Rotherham, Barnsley, Doncaster and Chesterfield is within a comfortable drive of the viewing day, where the ways and the spindle get a close look.
Tool rooms and the precision end
Not everything in a Sheffield sale is big. The tool rooms that support the forges and the aerospace work out at Waverley run surface grinders, jig borers, toolroom lathes and coordinate measuring machines, and those sell to a different buyer. A precision shop wants a grinder with its magnetic chuck, its wheels, its dressing kit and its manuals, and it wants to know the machine has been kept in a clean bay.
We lot tooling to suit. Chucks and holders stay with the machine they fit. Loose tooling, gauges, cutters and measuring equipment go in trays by type so that a buyer can bid on a tray of collets or a set of slip gauges without having to want the whole cabinet.
A measuring machine needs a careful move and often a recalibration, so we say so in the catalogue and buyers plan for it. Weight is a poor guide to value in a toolroom, so the precision lots get the same care as the heavy plant.
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 Sheffield
- Our presses are bolted to foundations in Attercliffe. Who deals with the pits and the bolts after removal?
The buyer arranges and pays for the removal, which includes cutting or unbolting the holding down bolts, and the pit and the foundation stay. Making good the floor is normally the seller's job under the lease, so check the dilapidations clause before the sale. The catalogue can tell buyers that machines must be removed to floor level, and the collection window can be agreed to leave you time to fill the pits before the keys go back.
- We are winding down a forging shop over six months. Can we sell in stages?
Yes. Staged sales suit a shop that is finishing contracts one at a time. We catalogue the machines you can release now and sell them in a first sale, then come back for the rest when the last jobs are done. Each sale gets its own viewing and collection days so production carries on in between. The main thing is to agree the sequence early, so that the machines still running are not sat in the way of the ones coming out.
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.