Is there a "reasonable" level of after-purchase service from a major auction house?

[Deinomenid]

I recently bought a few coins from Spink  in  London. I didn't break any intergalactic price record with the purchases,  but it wasn't an  insignificant amount of money.

When the coins arrived one had additional tags on it saying it was from the 1941 Red Cross sale. To be fair to Spink this was not mentioned in the auction  but as I am  interested in  provenance  I wrote them a friendly,  polite email asking if they had any  information on the tags. I had exhausted my  own lines of enquiry  first, including the excellent r numis.

They didn't reply. I asked again, no reply. This was to the service representative, not a bot. I then gently complained and was given the names/emails of the 2 catalogers and asked them. No reply.   Just to calibrate my expectations, is this normal or acceptable?

 

In case of any doubt about how  I asked, this is what I said, to resounding silence.

Dear Sirs,

I purchased this coin the other day and when it arrived it had 2 separate tags saying  it was from the Red Cross 1941 sale. Do you happen to  know anything about this please, or what it refers to? I had hoped that given  its extremely light weight for the type at  just over 16g  it would be easier to trace, but r numis, coryssa, the ANS library, Gantz, Sydenham, Churchill  etc are showing nothing.
Any suggestions you might have would be hugely appreciated. I do realize there were a number of Red Cross sales at the time, which doesn't make this process simple!

 

Before I descend into a deep sulk with them and put them on my do not buy from  list (which  probably hurts me rather more than them!) is this reasonable?

Thank you.

 

[Curtisimo]

I have asked several auction houses about provenance on coins I had a reasonable lead on and I only receive a response about 50% of the time.

Roma, Nomos AG, Naville and Pars are the ones that have always responded to me (even sometimes with a polite “We don’t have any other info”). Most of the time they are willing and able to tell you what region or country they think the consignment came from which can be very helpful at narrowing a provenance search.  I much appreciate the auction houses that take the time to respond to me if I ask a question. It absolutely has an impact on my decision on what auctions to bid in.

[John Conduitt]

I've never asked them about provenance, but any queries to do with buying and delivering coins have always been quickly answered. Maybe such questions have to go to the cataloguer, who might not be invested in answering (I don't know if they'd even be employed by Spink). When I asked Baldwins about provenance they forwarded it to the cataloguer, although they did at least tell me they'd done that. I can't think of any other auction house that answered. It's much the same when I point out errors in attribution. Most just ignore me 🤣

I once spent a lot of money with Heritage USA - the most I've ever spent - and they messed up the customs paperwork so the shipment got stuck in a bureaucratic loop. They just ignored my pleas for help. I had to put quite a few hours into resolving it. And that was something they should be doing as that's what they're paid for, not just helping someone out.

None of that is reasonable. But what do you do? There was another thread about not buying coins from places that don't attribute correctly. Everywhere is guilty of that. I'd be more hardline on fulfilling contractual obligations (I avoid Heritage USA) but anything else, I don't know. Most auction houses are somewhat specialist in something or other, so if you refuse to deal with them, you have few alternatives. Luckily, slabs are not my thing.

[Prieure de Sion]

12 hours ago, Deinomenid said:

I recently bought a few coins from Spink  in  London. I didn't break any intergalactic price record with the purchases,  but it wasn't an  insignificant amount of money.

When the coins arrived one had additional tags on it saying it was from the 1941 Red Cross sale. To be fair to Spink this was not mentioned in the auction  but as I am  interested in  provenance  I wrote them a friendly,  polite email asking if they had any  information on the tags. I had exhausted my  own lines of enquiry  first, including the excellent r numis.

They didn't reply. I asked again, no reply. This was to the service representative, not a bot. I then gently complained and was given the names/emails of the 2 catalogers and asked them. No reply.   Just to calibrate my expectations, is this normal or acceptable?

 

In case of any doubt about how  I asked, this is what I said, to resounding silence.

Dear Sirs,

I purchased this coin the other day and when it arrived it had 2 separate tags saying  it was from the Red Cross 1941 sale. Do you happen to  know anything about this please, or what it refers to? I had hoped that given  its extremely light weight for the type at  just over 16g  it would be easier to trace, but r numis, coryssa, the ANS library, Gantz, Sydenham, Churchill  etc are showing nothing.
Any suggestions you might have would be hugely appreciated. I do realize there were a number of Red Cross sales at the time, which doesn't make this process simple!

 

Before I descend into a deep sulk with them and put them on my do not buy from  list (which  probably hurts me rather more than them!) is this reasonable?

Thank you.

 

 

Before any speculation happens - it may also be that your email has disappeared in the SPAM folder. I have often communicated with others, received no answer and later it turned out that the recipients did not receive my email at all - or were already blocked on the provider server as SPAM.

I also don't know which email address you sent the request to.

I just sent you an email address from SPINK via private forum message. Be so kind and send your message to this personal SPINK email address. And then give us / me feedback here if it worked.

Thanks.

 

 

Edited January 5, 2023 by Prieure de Sion

[Ryro]

Spink has gone waaaaay above and beyond for me in the past. 

I'm sure it is a simple communication issue, ie, spam or whatnot. 

Ps, congrats on the early provenance!

[Prieure de Sion]

I buy many coins from SPINK - UK, USA and HongKong. Because the German tax office - I have for every shipment specially shipment instructions - and every business SPINK did it well I write them with email. So for me - I get there a fantastic service. So I cannot say any bad about them.

 

Today I get with FedEx this coin from SPINK UK.

 

 

[Deinomenid]

Thanks. Especially for the email.

I’ll follow up (fifth time) hoping it is just a spam issue. Though the first few weren’t (they literally ignored me until I got a little cross).

My post was less to name and shame Spink specifically than to see if what I was asking was reasonable, using them only as an example. Whether they have any unwritten obligation (too strong a word…) to reply post auction to a question that doesn’t directly relate to the purchase and successful delivery of the item. Sounds like different houses take very different views to this.

 

[Deinomenid]

Prieure, your contact helpfully put me  in touch with the dept of ancient coins who were  full of apology, curiously  only about their potential error in cataloguing the coin, not that I had had to try 5 times to reach them!

So my mystery continues, but that was very helpful.