Zoll-Auktion.de

Zoll-Auktion.de is run by Hauptzollamt Gießen, whose Arbeitsbereich Zoll-Auktion sits at Leinenweberstr. 2 in Bad Hersfeld, and calls itself the auction house of Germany's federal, state and municipal bodies. The conditions name three sources of stock: goods distrained, impounded or confiscated; equipment agencies have written off; and property the state acquired otherwise, such as found items and fiscal inheritances. Only authorities and public-law bodies may sell, private firms never. Sellers include Polizeipräsidium Frankfurt, the Bundesanstalt für Immobilienaufgaben and Stadt Gütersloh's fire service, with over 2,000 lots running at once.

What you can buy

• Cars and vans: Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Opel and Audi, the odd Aston Martin V8 Vantage or Range Rover Velar, family cars such as the VW Touran Comfortline, electric models like the VW ID.7 and Opel Zafira-e, and Unfall- & Bastlerfahrzeuge such as a VW Passat 4Motion listed as not roadworthy.
• Commercial and municipal vehicles: ex-fleet vans, police motorcycles, trailers, street sweepers, a turntable ladder on a Mercedes Atego, a Unimog fire engine, roll-off containers.
• Heavy machinery: an Atlas 75 ET wheel loader, Fendt and New Holland tractors, a Burkhardt combined heat and power unit.
• Coins and precious metals: a 31.1 g Maple Leaf gold coin, Heraeus and Degussa bars, Austrian and Dutch gold pieces, many from customs seizures.
• Watches, jewellery and designer goods: Rolex Datejust and Yacht-Master, a Louis Vuitton bag with certificate, Christian Louboutin shoes, Dior and Gucci perfumes.
• Tools and machinery: a Flott SB23 pillar drill, a Kärcher NT 611 wet-and-dry vacuum, a TechnoAlpin snow cannon, workshop equipment.
• IT and electronics: Cisco Catalyst switches, batches of Lenovo ThinkPads, Fujitsu desktops, an Apple iPad.
• Bicycles and e-bikes: Cube and Focus mountain bikes, trekking bikes, VanMoof and Gazelle e-bikes, ten-bike mixed lots.
• Other categories: art, furniture, books, clothing, musical instruments, toys, garden gear, food and drink.

How the bidding works

Bidding needs an account, open to individuals of full legal capacity and to companies, which tick an "Angaben zur Firma" box; an email link closes registration. Sales are timed auctions with a countdown and a proxy agent: enter a maximum and the system bids for you in fixed increments, €1 below €25 rising to €100 above €5,000. Sniping does not pay — no knockdown is given until the leading bid has stood five minutes, so a late offer only pushes the close back. Payment and pickup fall inside ten days: cash below €10,000, cashless at or above, and goods move against payment, not before. Many lots are pickup-only; others ship where the seller offers it, at your cost and transport risk, abroad only by arrangement, never spirits or tobacco.

What to check before you bid

You owe the bid plus any shipping the listing quotes; the conditions name no buyer's premium. Most auctions fall outside VAT, so none is shown and no invoice follows — since 1 January 2016 some are taxable, flagged in the description with the tax already inside the bid. Statutory warranty is excluded and §474 BGB withdrawal and return rights do not apply, so the Gegenstandsbeschreibung is all you get: every lot carries a condition description, at least one photo, sometimes an expert report, with vehicle entries down to keys, service book and MOT date. On distrained goods risk passes at the knockdown. Viewings happen only by appointment with the contact person in the listing, worth arranging for anything mechanical. Collection is decentralised, goods sitting with the selling authority from Hamburg to Oldenburg, Rosenheim or Meschede, so price transport before a bargain 600 km away stops being one. Everything is German, with no language switch, and ten days is tight if you book a transporter from abroad.