Britannia AuctionsMachinery and engineering auctions in Stoke-on-Trent
Stoke's engineering sits behind the potteries. Every tableware and sanitaryware factory keeps a maintenance and mould shop with lathes, mills, grinders and drills in it, and the city has general engineering, plastics, food and building products firms of its own on Fenton Industrial Estate, Trentham Lakes, Parkhall and the estates around Etruria Valley.
The machines in a ceramics works are there to make and repair moulds and dies, and they are often older manual kit in good condition because they have done light work. A toolroom lathe or a turret mill with its tooling suits a small shop in Leek or Congleton, and online bidding opens the sale to dealers and end users across the UK.
We catalogue on site with the detail buyers want. The sale runs online for a week or two with a viewing day at the works, and collection is managed on fixed days. Tell us what is in the workshop through the contact form.
Workshops behind the kilns
A ceramics factory that closes is sold as a whole, and the engineering workshop is one part of a catalogue that also holds kilns, presses, glaze plant and the forklifts. The machine tools still deserve their own care, because the buyers for a lathe are not the buyers for a kiln, and a lot described only as workshop equipment tells them nothing.
So each machine is listed by make, model, serial number and capacity, with its tooling and the accessories that go with it. Mould making kit, from pantographs to plaster lathes, is specialised and we describe it for the trade that wants it.
Where the workshop is the whole sale, as with a subcontract engineering firm at Fenton or Parkhall, the catalogue is built around the machines. Either way one person handles the job from the first visit to settlement.
Estate roads, hard standing and the floor inside
The estates here were built for ceramics traffic, with access roads and hard standing to match, and the A500 reaches the M6 at junction 15 or 16 while the A50 gives a route east to Uttoxeter and Derby. What a unit can take is still measured at the site visit.
That is what decides the collection days. Where a site allows it, one window can cover the heavy and the light lots together, and the order is agreed with you. Newcastle-under-Lyme, Crewe, Stafford and Leek are close enough for the smaller lots to go by van or trailer.
Inside the building is where care is still needed. Older works have uneven floors, steps between bays, narrow doorways and machines on plinths, so we map the route out when we first visit and put it in the catalogue.
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 Stoke-on-Trent
- The works has been closed for a while and the machines have not run for months. Does that hurt the sale?
A machine that cannot be shown running is judged on what a buyer can see, which is the condition of the ways, the spindle, the slides and the tooling rather than whether it started last week. Where power can be restored safely, machines that can be run stay connected for the viewing day and your staff can demonstrate them where you agree to it. Everything else is isolated and left safe, and the catalogue says which machines were seen running and which were not.
- We are a plastics moulder at Trentham Lakes with a small toolroom. Do you sell the moulding machines as well?
Yes. Injection moulding machines, granulators, dryers and chillers go in the same catalogue as the toolroom lathes and grinders, and the sale is marketed to both trades. Moulding machines are listed by clamp tonnage, shot size, control and year, and the toolroom kit by make, model, capacity and tooling. One viewing day at the unit brings both sets of buyers in. The collection order is agreed with you, and the heavier moulding machines usually need the most room in it.
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.