The Billy Albert Collection Of Smiths Vinyl and Memorabilia

Viewing by appointment 17th February 

PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL BIDS ARE LEGALLY BINDING AND CANNOT BE CANCELLED ONCE PLACED, SO THINK CAREFULLY BEFORE PLACING ANY BIDS. 

Our auctions are now open for viewing and bidding in person.  If you are unable to bid in person, there are a number of ways to join our auctions remotely: 

By absentee bid

If you are unable to attend the auction you can leave an absentee bid on our website.  The amount you bid should be your maximum bid. The system will bid up to that limit for you, and remember you may end up paying less than your limit, depending on other bidding on the day.

A buyer premium of 28.8% will be added to the hammer price (24%+VAT)

For example, if you bid up to £100, you will pay £128.80 in total 

Bid live online on our website (Omega Live)

Many clients prefer bidding live online at our auctions. It’s easy to register with us online, you can watch the auction as it happens and place bids from the comfort of your desktop/ mobile device.

A buyer premium of 28.8% (inclusive of VAT) will be added to the hammer price (24%+VAT)

For example, if you bid up to £100, you will pay £128.80 in total 

Bid live online via the-saleroom.com

There is an additional 6% (inclsuive of VAT) charge for bidding via the-saleroom.com (5%+VAT)

The total charges (buyer premium + saleroom.com charge) will be 34.8% (inclusive of VAT) on top of the hammer price (29%+VAT).

For example, if you bid up to £100, you will pay £134.80 in total 

By telephone

For lots with a low estimate of more than £500, we may be able to arrange a telephone bid, however, you must be prepared to bid at least the low estimate.  If you would like to bid by telephone please contact our team prior to the auction with your details of the lots you are interested in and your full name, mailing address, telephone number(s) and email. Once our team have processed your bid request you will receive an email confirmation.

A buyer premium of 28.8% (inclusive of VAT) will be added to the hammer price (24%+VAT)

For example, if you bid up to £100, you will pay £128.80 in total 

Please note that all absentee and telephone bid requests must be received by close of business the day before the auction. 

Registration on Omega Auctions website

In order to leave an absentee bid or bid live on our website, you will need to register for an account.

You will need to enter a valid credit/credit card in order to place absentee bids or register for live bidding.

For live bidding, it is possible to pre-register up to 21 days before the sale.  We advise that you register at least 24 hours before each sale, to ensure that your registration is processed and you are able to bid on the day of the sale. 

Most bidders have a default bidding limit of £10,000.  You can check your bidding limit from within your account. If you think you may require a higher limit, please let us know and we will review your account.

The Live Bidding screen is available from 1 hour before the start of the sale - you will need to log into your account and then go to the Auction Calendar.  Next to the auction will be a button 'Bid Live', which will open up the bidding window and will have full audio/visual streams from the auction room.  The live auction will run consecutively one lot after the other and will start at the current pre-auction bid level.  We aim to do around 100 lots per hour.

PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL BIDS ARE LEGALLY BINDING AND CANNOT BE CANCELLED ONCE PLACED, SO THINK CAREFULLY BEFORE PLACING ANY BIDS. 

Payment Methods

Bank Transfer/BACS/Wire

Debit Card (up to £5000)

Credit Card (up to £5000)

A surcharge of 3% (2.5%+VAT) will apply on overseas card payments and also ALL corporate debit/credit card regardless of country.

We do not take card payments over the telephone.  Card payments can be made in person (CHIP & PIN) or online only. 

PAYMENT IS REQUIRED WITHIN TWO WORKING DAYS OF THE END OF THE SALE.

Shipping

If you have bid online, telephone bid or absentee bid and are successful, we can usually arrange shipping for invoices with a value less than £10,000, which can easily be shipped via Royal Mail or our nominated courier. We cannot insure against broken glass and whilst we package carefully, we cannot accept any liability for damage in transit. For framed items we can either remove from frames or ship in frames at your risk. For large/bulky or particularly fragile items please check in advance that we are able to ship. We are happy to provide an approximate shipping quote in advance of the sale for items you are interested in.

Please note that we do not provide a packaging only service.
In order for us to provide shipping, payment must be received within 2 days of the end of the auction.
Shipping is at the risk and expense of the buyer.

If items are being shipped to a country outside of the UK, you are likely to incur import tax/customs duty.  We are unable to advise how much you will be charged, as each country has it's own rules and charges differently.  The responsibility for paying these charges lies strictly with the importer/receiver.

Post-auction Process

At the end of the sale, we will collate lots and calculate shipping quotes (where appropriate).  You will then be sent an invoice via email, with payment instructions - this is usually sent during the evening of the sale day.  For two-day sales, invoices are normally sent on the evening of the 2nd day.  

If you need to change your shipping address, you can do this from within your account.

Vinyl Grading:

We endeavour to make our descriptions as detailed and accurate as possible however we always recommend viewing or requesting condition reports in order to provide additional assurance regarding condition prior to bidding.  

When cataloging vinyl we use the Record Collector grading system to visually grade the records and sleeves.  We do not play any of the records (unless stated) and therefore cannot attest to how they will grade upon playing.  Buyers should therefore factor this in when deciding how much they are willing to pay for records when bidding.

When selling larger lots of records (20+) we will only visually grade a sample of the records and will grade the records on the basis of this sample.  It is therefore possible that some records may fall above or below the general grading given.  For example, if a collection is graded as generally being in "VG+ to Ex+ condition" then we cannot guarantee that there will not be some which fall outside the classification.

Gradings are given as a guide and whilst we try to be conservative in our assessment, gradings, by their nature, are subjective. We can therefore not accept returns as a result of a difference in grading opinion.

Vinyl Counts:

Where there are more than 30 records in a lot, we do not provide an exact count.  We may state 'around 40' for example - this could mean that there are slightly more or slightly less and whilst we endeavour to round counts down, rather than up, a tolerance of 5% should be allowed for when deciding how much to bid.