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This page defines terms and conditions that apply to the Virtual Auction System as well as how to use specific features of the system. You can use this page as a menu to browse the different topics.
Note that any terms and conditions applied as well as general conditions described in our disclaimer page.
While we urge you to read these conditions carefully, and act accordingly, we aim always to behave in a fair and reasonable way. If you have a problem, please tell us about it by contacting us.
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Admission to view lots displayed at VEMIA is strictly by appointment only.
Fell free to contact us to arrange an appointment with our staff.
Check also that the gear is well located at VEMIA offices before requesting a meeting with us. |
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VEMIA are acting simply as auctioneers and the agents of the various sellers. We aim to make the catalogue completely accurate, and the lot descriptions exact and correct, but:
- Each lot is sold as is, with any faults or misdescriptions, and without warranty.
- Any description or attribution made by any VEMIA staff is to be taken as opinion, not fact.
- For distance auction lots, the statements or other evidence put forward by sellers are their responsibility. VEMIA believe them to be true, but have not verified them.
- VEMIA will act as stakeholders of the buyer's bid until the goods are delivered satisfactorily.
- Transport will be arranged between seller and buyer, with VEMIA acting as intermediary whenever needed. Unless specifically agreed to the contrary :
- The buyer pays for the cost of transport and any taxes or duty payable, and for insurance in transit and on
- The seller will be responsible for packing the goods to the satisfaction of the carriers and insurers.
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VEMIA are acting as agents for sellers in good faith, on the understanding that the sellers have legal title to the goods offered for sale, but VEMIA have not verified the fact.
Legal title will pass to the buyer on cleared payment of the bid price plus 10% premium including VAT |
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VEMIA will insure items delivered to us (from the time when they are delivered to us in the agreed manner and signed for, until the lot is sold) against loss or damage from accident, fire, flood or theft. The responsibility for insuring a lot passes in law to the buyer immediately 'the hammer has fallen' - i.e. the lot has been sold - but we will take all reasonable steps to safeguard the lot.
The insured value of the item will, prior to sale, be the agreed reserve minus 10% commission or, if no reserve was agreed, VEMIA's lower estimate of the likely price. |
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We will, at our sole discretion, choose to produce illustrations in sound and/or vision of any items included in the auction, published electronically or on paper.
Sellers give VEMIA and its agents the right to use these sound and/or vision illustrations in any way they see fit, whether or not connected with this auction.
Illustrations remain the copyright of VEMIA |
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Payment by buyers will be accepted by cash , bankers' draft, guaranteed or cleared cheque ( in £ Sterling, drawn on a UK bank), Delta, Visa or Mastercard, subject to the usual checks, but no goods will be available for removal until all payment is cleared. Bank transfer can also be used, with the buyer paying all fees.
New bidders will be asked for details of their planned payment methods during the auction. If your bid is successful, you have five days in which to pay.
Prompt payment is essential. Until payment is cleared the lot is left in the catalogue, but deemed to be sold subject to clearance. In the event of slow payment, VEMIA reserves the right to offer the item to the next bidder, and hold the original bidder responsible for any loss.
Payment to sellers will be made by cheque in £ Sterling as soon as possible after items have been satisfactorily delivered or collected, and will be subject to deductions for 10% sellers' commission including VAT and any other agreed expenses as notified by VEMIA to the seller.
All payments must be in pounds Sterling (GBP). Bank details:- Nat West, 133 High Street, Crediton, Devon EX17 3DT
- sort code 52 30 06
- account Susurreal VEMIA
- account number 13422286
- BIC NWBK GB 2L
- IBAN GB79 NWBK 5230 0613 4222 86
If you are paying by credit card, you can email details to the same address (pforrest@vemia.co.uk) - in several separate emails, if you want. But if you are unhappy with email security, please fax +44 1363 777872 (UK: 01363 777872), or phone +44 1363 774611 (UK: 01363 774611). For cheques, please send immediately to VEMIA, Star House, Sandford, Crediton, Devon EX17 4LR, UK. Cheque clearance can be very very slow - the fault of the British banking system - sorry.
Payment needs to be organised within five days; but it is important that, if you haven't already done so, you respond immediately to this notification, telling us how you will proceed with payment. Immediate payment is obviously even better.
If a lot was described as being liable to VAT, VAT will be charged. If you are exempt from this, either as a VAT-registered non-UK person, or as someone from outside the European Community, please alert us to this if the statement doesn't take this into account.
Remember that inside the EC, buyer's premium is 10%. Outside, it is 8.51%. If you think the figures above are incorrect, or have any other queries, please email pforrest@vemia.co.uk. |
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Please remember that there is a 10% buyer's premium to pay. If you buy a lot for £50, you will pay £55.
Non-European Community residents do not have to pay VAT, so in their case the premium is 8.51%, making a total of £54.26 on a £50 bid. There are no other charges to pay, except for packing and carriage where necessary, and VAT (for EC and UK residents) on the whole price of any lot which is identified in the catalogue as being liable to VAT.
Unless a lot is liable to VAT, VAT receipts can't be issued |
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In most cases, it is necessary to make one payment for the lots themselves, and then a second payment for shipping - because shipping costs can only be worked out once the destination is known, the item is fully packed, and the possibility of joining in one consignment to save money, and the most economic shipping method have all been explored.
The only exception to this is sometimes where payment is to be made by bank transfer. In these cases we will attempt to work out an inclusive price, so that the expense of bank transfer only occurs once.
Even then, it is generally far better, if possible, for a credit card to be used for the shipping payment. |
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Sellers, please don't forget that in entering items into the VEMIA auction, unless it is specifically stated otherwise in the lot description, you are accepting the responsibility (and the cost) of packing them satisfactorily if they need to be sent to buyers.
Packing must be up to a high enough standard to satisfy the shipping companies' insurance requirements. Insurance will simply not cover an item that has been inadequately packed, or whose packaging has failed, and it will be deemed to be the sender's fault.
There aren't any specific rules that all companies follow. The only international standards available apparently have stupidly high protection requirement
After years of organising the shipping of hundreds of items worldwide, from stomp boxes to Hammonds and Mellotrons, we can at least offer advice. We believe that the vast majority of cases of damage to shipments are actually caused by inadequate packing - often enough, packing that has one weak point. And a package is only as strong as its weakest part.
That doesn't mean that packages aren't often treated more roughly than they ought to be - or that compensation is never payable. But even in a case where an insurance claim is paid, it's usually a complicated hassle claiming it. Plus, of course, one more old piece of kit has been spoilt, and will never be quite the same again.
The only good answer is to do everything reasonable to lessen the chance of damage in the first place. That briefly means four things:
- Making sure that internal parts, and mains leads, accessories, etc., are totally secure, and not going to come loose, to damage themselves or things around them.
- Isolating the item from external shock, with at least 25 mm and preferably 50 mm of impact-absorbent material around every part, with no room for movement, and no reason for the material to fail - eg no unprotected sharp edges on the equipment itself.
- Protecting this impact-absorbent material with a hard outer shell - usually of cardboard of the right thickness - again with no room for movement.
- Labelling the finished package carefully and clearly, with Fragile and This Side On Top notices, and clear address information - the more a parcel gets taken around to wrong addresses or warehouses, the more chance of damage.
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Internal parts
As well as early valve equipment, kit synthesisers, etc., are prone to internal damage, either through inadequate construction techniques, or simply because the design wasn't really roadworthy. The same precautions need to be taken.
External parts
We've often been sad to find damage caused completely un-necessarily by mains leads or even heavy manuals or patch leads banging around loose in the packaging of an instrument, when two minutes' work could have avoided the problem.
Mains leads
Plugs are sharp - and old ones can also be fragile! They must first be covered with tough material, before being secured in a padded bag. The lead must then be positioned where it can't do damage to the instrument. Placing it on top of a flat keyboard isn't necessarily a good idea - a heavy package then placed on top could put a lot of pressure on the keyboard. If the lead is attached to the instrument, even more care is necessary to protect it and keep it stowed safely.
If an item is being sent to another country, it's worth asking whether the buyer wants the mains plug cut off, because they will probably have to replace it anyway, and taking it off lessens the risk of damage (and makes the packing simpler and slightly lighter, too).
Manuals
Usually better at the bottom of the package, because they can lie flat, and paper is quite heavy stuff.
Other small items
Something small like a breath controller can be difficult to find within packaging, so it's important that the recipient knows how many items to be looking for, and that the packages are clearly visible.
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There are a lot of possible materials that can be used to isolate the instrument from the rough treatment it's bound to get. Polystyrene beans, corrugated cardboard, polystyrene sheets, bubble-wrap· and different people swear by different materials. But whatever is used, there are some firm rules which need to be followed.
First, think carefully whether there are any parts that need special protection.
Anything that sticks out from the whole instrument will need careful extra padding. Typical examples: joy-sticks or similar controllers; heat-sinks; projecting keys, and so on. The extra protection must be anchored around the part, not on it - otherwise the stress will still fall on it, instead of the load being spread around. A joy-stick, for example, can possibly be kept safe by having the cardboard middle of a 2" sticky tape reel secured round it.
Don't be tempted ever to tape directly to the instrument. It might come off fine if you test it immediately, but in four or five days' time, the tape can sometimes be a pig to remove.
The instrument must be protected from any little bits of foam or whatever getting under the keys, in the ventilation holes, etc· Bubble wrap, well sealed, will do that itself, but otherwise, it's important to seal the instrument with tough brown paper
Some equipment - particularly rack gear - has very sharp edges. This can wreak havoc with bubble-wrap, and make it basically useless. Once the bubbles have been broken, the stuff might as well not be there - and pressure from a sharp rack ear, or even a ninety-degree metal edge, can do that in a second.
With rack gear, at the very least cover all sharp or protruding edges with heavy duty cardboard or polystyrene. Better, use sheet polystyrene (cut to size after the first covering of the instrument) secured to the sides, so that the ears no longer stick out - and the right-angled edges are protected, as well.
For a keyboard, sheet polystyrene cut to size and taped to the (covered) sides of the instrument can help protect the keyboard, or control surfaces.
After these crucial preliminaries, the bulk of the shock-absorbing material needs adding. If it's bubble-wrap, then that's pretty straightforward - simply winding it round, quite tightly, until the right amount of coverage is reached.
With other materials, though, some will have to be put in the box before the wrapped and padded instrument is lowered in, and more material added around it. Don't skimp on the amount of material underneath - it's often the most crucial shock protection.
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Sometimes items are sold with their own flightcase - but beware. Some 'flightcases' which are part of instruments aren't anything of the sort, and offer no internal protection or shock-absorption worth speaking about. They're just solid boxes with lids, and will need proper packing outside this case. Other flightcases were once OK, but maybe the foam has deteriorated (it does seem to have a life of only a decade or so before it slowly starts turning to dust) - or maybe the flightcase wasn't actually design
An ill-fitting or partly unpadded flightcase is far worse than no flightcase at all. If necessary, the foam may have to be replaced.
With any case or box, there's always going to be an optimum size. If the container is less than 50 mm bigger than the instrument in each of the three dimensions, it's too small, and shouldn't be used. If it's more than 125 mm or so bigger in any direction, it's too big.
With a cardboard carton that's too small, the answer is simple: get a sharp knife, and carefully cut it to the right size, by opening it right out, and re-folding if necessary at different points. Scoring the card along a straight edge on the outside of the bend makes it easier - but then make sure the outside of this scored line is securely taped.
If it's a flightcase, then the extra padding will have to be strong - such as heavy-duty foam - and completely and reliably fill the space, otherwise you're asking for trouble.
Where to find cardboard boxes? For medium-sized items, local supermarkets or other stores may be a possible source. For large things like keyboards, the best bet is a bike shop. The most important thing is that the thickness and solidity of the box should be proportional to the weight and fragility of the contents.
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Although there's a good chance any labelling will be ignored, it doesn't do any harm to try, clearly but politely, to help the carrier treat your package with the care it deserves. We've found
that several separate Fragile labels are better than metres and metres of Fragile tape; and that This Side On Top labelled on the top of the package, with arrows pointing upwards on the sides of the carton, is less likely to be confused than This Way Up
And although you'll usually have to fill in a label for the carriers with address information on it, it is important to have a separate label with the recipient's address large, and the sender's address small. Contact phone numbers are good, too
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Don't pack several things together without taking extra care.
Don't make packages top-heavy. Plan ahead, and make sure the heavier part is at the bottom.
Don't be tempted to try using ordinary sellotape to secure a heavy parcel. It's expensive and ineffective. Use 2-inch tape, which is stronger and much cheaper.
Size matters: for international shipments, and occasionally for inland packages, companies will charge more for a lightweight, large package. Many carriers work out this 'volumetric weight' by multiplying length by width by depth and dividing by 6000 (some companies by 5000) to give the equivalent amount of kg.
Be warned that in the majority of cases with audio equipment, if something is packed well and isn't exceptionally dense, the volumetric weight will be more than the actual weight, and so the shipping will be more expensive. For international shipping, it's therefore crucial not to waste space - 50 mm padding around every surface, but no more!
An un-necessarily big package is anyway
more likely to be dropped, and is also going to weigh more than it need, so the simple lesson is: make the package only as big as it needs to be - a total of 100 mm bigger in each dimension.
The worst case scenario is a keyboard wedged into a huge cubic cardboard box at an angle. The two edges jammed against the sides aren't protected, so the whole keyboard is at risk; the package is unbalanced, and far more likely to be dropped; and the wasted space has to be filled and probably has to be paid for, as well. A typical shipping price difference between this and a well-packed Prophet 5 coming from the USA could be as high as £100 - plus the repair costs when the thing gets dropped and broken.
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Buying bubble wrap and two-inch tape from your local supplier can be very expensive. If you're likely to use larger quantities up eventually, it is probably worth ordering materials from a mail-order supplier. In the UK, Viking are probably the biggest. Others include Neat Ideas and Quill. They will happily send you a catalogue - but their best offers are often in the smaller monthly catalogues, rather than the big comprehensive twice-yearly ones.
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If something is very problematic to pack, it's possible to pay commercial packers to do it - and a few, mainly independent, carriers will arrange that for you.
Commercial packers are now starting to use amazing machines which can form a plastic foam case round an instrument, and that's obviously ideal, because it equals or even improves on the sort of protection a new piece of equipment gets in its original packing.
Even if they use more traditional methods, they should know how to do a good job. We've used them for international shipments of a Yamaha CS-80, a Hammond C-3 and Leslie 122, and similar large and extremely heavy items - so far, with 100% success. The only potential worry is that the item still has to get to the packer - and it won't be fully protected on this journey. Make sure that the company insurance covers this segment of the trip as well.
Very heavy items are perhaps best transported by an independent specialist company.
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As you'll see, many of the items for sale aren't at our premises - or even in the UK. No problem!
All sellers are known to us from past auction dealings or from personal contact or reference.
If an item is in another country, we have several years experience of organising or helping to organise fully insured shipping at reasonable rates to and from the UK and throughout the world. Plus, most European items in this auction will be shipped very economically to VEMIA for distribution unless they're sold to a buyer who is closer to the seller than we are.
The money you pay is held securely, and remains your property until the items have arrived at your address satisfactorily. |
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Each time you try to make a bid, our system is checking that at least a certain bid step is added to the current bid. We do this like a normal auction to avoid people to spend time adding £1 on an item just for fun.
The bid step is defined according to the following table:
- From £1.00 to £9.00: bids go in minimum £1.00 step
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- From £10.00 to £29.00: bids go in minimum £2.00 step
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- From £30.00 to £99.00: bids go in minimum £5.00 step
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- From £100.00 to £299.00: bids go in minimum £10.00 step
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- From £300.00 to £999.00: bids go in minimum £20.00 step
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- From £1000.00 up: bids go in minimum £50.00 step
Bid steps are automatically checked by our system on each bid by comparing the new bid with the current one. Bid steps are also use to automatically increase any proxy bid by one bid step when needed until the proxy bid is reached. |
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All bids initiated by buyers are proxy bids by default. The proxy bid is the maximum amount the buyer is willing to pay for an item.
The initial proxy bid must be higher than the current high bid plus one bid step. If you are the first bidder, your proxy must at least the starting bid plus one bid step.
The Virtual Auction System will do the rest for you, increasing your public bid by one bid step each time someone beats your current public bid. Once you have reached the amount of your proxy, you'll be notified via e-mail if you're outbid.
You may increase your proxy at any time by clicking on the 'Bid' button from the auction detail page. When you place another proxy bid, the system will automatically adjust your current public bid accordingly if needed and remove the old one. |
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When defining a bid as saller, you can upload a picture that will be displayed into the auction detail page. This picture should be a picture of the real equipment and not a picture from any manufacturer's folder or catalogue.
The purpose of the upload image feature is to give a clear idea of the state of the gear and must therefore reflect it's real appearance and condition.
Note that our general terms and conditions applied on pictures uploaded on our servers. |
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The VEMIA lots will start to close on Friday November 30, starting at 14.00 GMT (06.00 PST, 10.00 EST, 15.00 in much of Western Europe, and 23.00 in Japan!)
Lots are programmed to close in lot number order, every 40 seconds - with one main exception. If a bid is received in the last 20 seconds, the auction software continues to keep the lot open for a further 20 seconds. This allows live bidders to respond to any outstanding proxy bids, and also lessens the chances of a clever bidder getting in 'just in time' and stopping other people doing so.
Although this means that it is impossible to know precisely when any of the later lots will finish, we can estimate that it will average out at between 40 and 45 seconds per lot. Each lot will anyway have a regularly updated 'expected finish time' - refresh your screen to see any change.
It's worth repeating that the only good way of being sure you don't miss out on an item you desperately want is to enter a proxy bid of your absolute top amount. The chances are that it won't be needed (we've had several cases of people leaving £1000 proxy bids and winning the item for a few hundred pounds - and in one case exactly £110.) And of course if someone goes higher, then you've done your best, and it would have been foolish to bid higher anyway. But it's the one sure way to avoid disasters such as a computer crash, the phone ringing at the wrong time, and all the other unlikely events that happen far too often. (And you can still enjoy the adrenaline of watching the bidding unfold before your eyes, by regularly refreshing your screen, without having to panic each time someone beats your previous bid.)
Once a lot is closed, the seller and successful bidder will be emailed with the result. If no bid has been received, the usual situation will be that the lot is then changed from an auction lot into a standard selling bargain. The seller is told of this, and has the option to withdraw it, or keep it on the Sphere site for the next three weeks. The seller can also change the price if he wants, either up or down
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