Advertisements for Tool Auctions and Sales

[Maui]

I've been going to local auctions and estate sales for years looking for tools and machines. The two primary websites that I routinely visit for this purpose are Craigslist and Estatesales.net. And I've done pretty well. I've looked at other websites too like Facebook Marketplace but never ended up buying anything there. I've also checked out Auctionzip and found some things worth buying at a few of those auctions.

But I occasionally run across other people who attended auctions for high school shop equipment and ended up with some real bargains. Or others who attended auctions for manufacturing plants or machine shops that were closing down and were liquidating all of the remaining tools and equipment. I practically never run across these types of sales. Where do people find them advertised? Are there any websites that would be useful in locating these types of sales?

If it helps, I am located in upstate New York.

Maui

 

[Chris705]

for the municipal and school auctions in NYS (some MA and CT) I like this site....
https://www.auctionsinternational.com/

I have been successful using this link as well
https://www.go-dove.com/en/
though it is a lot of work sorting by region/area and what one is looking for. At the bottom of their main page are links to other sorts of auction sites that may be helpful.

Happy Hunting!

 

[pi_guy]

Go to EASTEC in Springfield Mass.
There is normally a booth or two dedicated to Auctions of business, I got on the email list and get two or three auction listing a day.

 

[DTE]

Auction zip is a good site. https://www.auctionzip.com/

 

[Maui]

Thanks for the tips! Funny - I used to live in Wilbraham, about a mile outside of Springfield. PiGuy, could you provide the email address for them since I'm not likely to be visiting that area during EASTEC?

 

[MushCreek]

I get lists of auctions from Proxibid. They rarely have anything that interests me, though. Auction houses have gotten so greedy, I don't want to do business with them unless something goes dirt cheap. I'm watching an online auction right now with 7% sales tax and 18% buyers premium. When the hell did buyers premium become a thing? I remember going to auctions in the 80's that had no such thing. I thought that they made their money off of the consignment fees. And this is an online auction- No auctioneer, no spotters, no runners. One person could easily process the 300 or so items. Between tax and juice, you have to add 25% to the price of whatever you buy. They seem to get top dollar for everything, though.

 

[pcmeiners]

https://www.irsauctions.com/

 

[cvairwerks]

For most industrial auctions, you need to really know what you are looking at, how to evaluate it’s condition very quickly and understand the rigging and transportation costs and scheduling. Lots of the auctions require the use of a rigging and moving company to disconnect, remove and load the equipment. Rigging costs can easily exceed the purchase costs, and they often have very narrowly defined removal schedules.

When we sold off some big equipment, the disconnect had to be done on 2nd and 3rd shift on a weekend and removal done during the week, between certain hours of the day. As the rigging had to be done by our riggers due to some oddball requirements, any production need for our crane and rigging crews took precedence. It took almost 2 months to get the beds from some giant mills to the point where the outside riggers could come in and prep them to be loaded.

 

[Maui]

Yep, there was an industrial liquidation auction that I ran across a few months ago where they identified which machines required you to hire a rigger and which ones you could haul away on your own. And they had a rigger identified that they recommended. So I called him and asked how much it would cost to remove a Bridgeport mill to load it onto my trailer. The answer was $800 to pick the mill up and put it on my trailer. No thanks. I didn’t bid on the mill.