Bangers & Cash

Auction terms explained

By Jon Cosson · Last checked 7 October 2026

An independent guide from the village. Not connected to Mathewsons or the programme. For entries, bidding and the catalogue, go to mathewsons.co.uk. Checked 7 October 2026.

The programme and the catalogue use a vocabulary that is obvious once you know it and baffling until you do. Here it is, in the order you meet it.

A display inside the Mathewsons museum in Thornton-le-Dale

Lot: one item for sale, numbered in catalogue order. A Pickering sale runs to 900 of them over three days.
Estimate: the auctioneer's published guide to what a lot might make. It is not a valuation and not a reserve.
Reserve: the confidential minimum the seller will accept. If bidding stops below it the lot is unsold. Mathewsons may ring the seller during the sale if the best bid is close.
No reserve: the lot sells to the highest bidder whatever the figure.
Hammer price: the winning bid when the gavel falls. The figure the programme quotes is usually this one, before fees.
Buyer's commission, or buyer's premium: the auctioneer's charge to the buyer on top of the hammer price, a percentage plus VAT. At Mathewsons it runs from 10 per cent down to 5 per cent by band, plus 1 per cent for online bidding. Our how-to-buy page has the worked examples.
Seller's commission: the auctioneer's charge to the seller, deducted from the hammer price before payment, plus an entry fee.
Commission bid, or absentee bid: a maximum you leave with the auctioneer before the sale, who bids for you up to that figure.
Telephone bid: you are rung as your lot comes up and bid live by phone.
Online bid: bidding through the auction house's website while the sale is live, usually with a surcharge.
Provisional, or provisionally sold: the top bid was below the reserve and the auctioneer is going back to the seller; the sale may yet be agreed.
Unsold, or passed: the lot did not reach its reserve. Unsold lots are often offered afterwards in a timed online sale or by private treaty.
Timed auction: an online-only sale with a closing time rather than an auctioneer, used by Mathewsons for unsold lots.
Sold as seen: the buyer takes the lot with all its faults, known and unknown, and has no comeback on condition. Standard at car auctions.
Catalogue description: the seller's account of the car, for which the seller, not the auctioneer, is responsible for accuracy under Mathewsons' terms.
Viewing: the days before a sale when the public can inspect the lots. At Pickering, six days, £5.
Barn find: a car that has stood unused for many years, often in poor cosmetic condition and prized for originality. The phrase sells cars and should make you look harder, not less hard.
Garage find: the same, but indoors and usually in better order.
One owner, or one family: the car has had a single keeper, or stayed in one family, from new. Check it against the V5C and the history file.
Matching numbers: the engine (and sometimes gearbox and body) carry the numbers the factory fitted, confirmed by records such as a heritage certificate. Valued for originality.
Heritage certificate: a certified copy of the factory build record for British marques, from the British Motor Museum, giving build date, engine and body numbers, colour and equipment where the ledger records them. £52 plus postage at the time of writing.
V5C: the registration document, or log book. The green slip (V5C/2) lets a new keeper tax the car at once.
MOT exempt: a car over 40 years old and unchanged needs no MOT, by declaration. Not the same as roadworthy.
Historic vehicle tax class: the £0 tax class for cars built before a rolling 40-year date, which also brings clean air zone exemptions.
SORN: a Statutory Off Road Notification, which declares the car off the road; it cannot then be driven except to a pre-booked test or to a place of repair.
Recommissioning: the work a car that has stood needs before it can be used safely, from fluids and tyres to brakes and fuel lines.
Restoration: a rebuild to a chosen standard, from a sympathetic tidy-up to a bare-shell rebuild. Restoring Classics shows the middle of that range.
Trade: dealers and motor traders, as opposed to private buyers. At Mathewsons the sale days are closed to both.

Sources: mathewsons.co.uk How to Buy and Terms; gov.uk historic vehicles and MOT pages; British Motor Museum heritage certificates; read 7 October 2026.