Anyone ever bid in a Kunker auction?

Among advanced world coin collectors, I would say yes.

 

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Kunker is one of the best known auction houses. Right up there with Heritage/ Stacks/ Elsens/ Baldwins/ Ars Classica/ CNG....

 

Thanks! There’s a grading week coming in May. I will submit it then. I’ll be sure to tag you with the results. Not that you’re responsible for them in any way.

I’m definitely sorry I missed you in Munich, but I’m glad you got the goodies. Hopefully you got oben of the deutsche Ausgaben I left from Coin World. Did you get any of the little Debbie goodies I left? Those are typical American deliciousness!

Munich was very cool and large. Bigger than the Frankfurt and Stuttgart shows, but maybe smaller than the World’s Fair of Money in Berlin. So many world coins to look at and Talers all over! Sadly the majority of them were clearly cleaned. Europeans seem to view dipped coins as market acceptable. I remarked to one major Taler seller that his coins were beautiful but they were sadly cleaned (gereinigt). He responded that they were all merely dipped (getaucht). It could be that he responded that way due to my word choice, and that gereinigt is closer to wiped, but a lot of dealers have admitted to dipping their coins as if it were perfectly acceptable and not something to be concerned about.

I only bought a couple of coins and and learned a lot about Taler pricings and availability.

Regarding Kuenker, I'll echo @Jaelus that amongst advanced world collectors, yes. I did not know about them before cominrh to Europe, but I’ve only started to really dive into world coins to where I need more than eBay and LCS’s.

 

Yes and no, as far as I can tell. Dipping is, or at least used to be, fairly common (at least in Germany) when it comes to silver coins. Anything abrasive ... nah, or it will affect the value/price. And when you buy online, you will often see "gereinigt" in the description. A harshly cleaned piece I would almost always avoid ...

Christian

 

I think that's one of my frustrations with the German language; meanings of certain words. My first ever issue with this was when I told my land lady that the house didn't need "eine Renovierung", but just a simple cleaning. When I moved in, I saw that she took down all the picture frames and you could see the black outlines from where they hung. When I told her that she should've cleaned the walls, she told me that I specifically told her she didn't need to do "eine Renovierung". No, no, that coin isn't "gereinigt", it's just been dipped to death...

 

Your German is pretty darn good, don't worry. These are "misunderstandings" that may well happen among native speakers too. Now dipped to death, that I like. The term, not the effect ...

Christian

 

For those of us who have to rely on google translate for German to English.. any tips for words we should look out for that would indicate tooling, smoothing, brushing, basically any messing around with a coin that may not be obvious from a simple google translate?

 

Berieben = wiped/cleaned
Poliert = polished
Gereinigt = cleaned
Henkelspur = evidence of being in a mount
Geglättet = smoothed
Graffiti = self explanatory
Kratzer = scratches
Gewellt = bent/dented

I think I got them all, but might have forgotten one or two.
Edit:
Zaponiert = varnished/plated
Gelocht = holed
Bearbeitet = tooled

 

"Zaponiert" refers to Zapon Lacquer or similar coin preservation products.

"Berieben": A better translation is perhaps "rubbed"

"Gewellt": waved (a term mainly used for thin medieval coins )

 

Kunker are very good at pointing out flaws. They also grade their material to the same standards as CNG/ Naumann/ Nomos. US slabbed coins vs Kunker grade...

stempelglanz= MS-67+
fast st. = MS-65/66
vorz. = MS-62/63/64

I noted that NGC sometimes will have a hammered coin listed as UNC/ Details/ Tooled when it was clipped back in 1400/1500. Many are just struck on irregular planchet.
John

 

Thank you so much!

 

You can also be confident that Künker will reduce even a very high bid that you submit for a coin you really want, to just one bid above the next highest bid they receive.

A couple of years ago I bid over 1000 euros for a coin estimated at maybe 250 in one of their catalogue auctions. Künker firstly wrote me back to confirm that my high bid was not just a typo, then acquired the coin for me at what I considered a bargain price, around 275-300 euros. .

 

Sorry forgot to ask in my first reply, but what does “in a mount” mean?

 

means it was in a bezel/ worn as jewellery. Some people wear coins mounted in rings/ pendents. Not a good idea to bid on coins like that.