Auction conditions

1. The Auctioneer shall act in the name and for the account of a third party. The auctioneer is authorised to assert the rights of the consignor arising from his order and from the knockdown in the name of the consignor. A contract of sale between the consignor and the successful bidder is concluded upon acceptance of the bid. The Auctioneer is legally obliged to name the other party to the contract at the request of the Consignor or the Purchaser.
2. The auctioneer reserves the right to combine, separate, offer out of sequence or withdraw lots from the catalogue during the auction, while safeguarding the interests of the consignors.
3. The items to be auctioned may be inspected and examined prior to the auction. The auctioneer does not assume any guarantee in the legal sense for the catalogue descriptions made to the best of his knowledge and belief - with the exception of the provision in item 12. In the case of collector's lots, the information provided does not refer to a contractually agreed quality in the sense of sales law. The Auctioneer also assumes no guarantee for individual stamps and their quality if they come from collector's lots. Phrases such as ‘mint’ or ‘complete’ give the impression of random samples for the value-decisive parts of the lot, but are not a guarantee of any kind. All collector's lots are only auctioned as they are. In the case of individual lots, the buyer, who is an entrepreneur, cannot make a claim against the auctioneer for material defects if the auctioneer has fulfilled his duty of care. However, the auctioneer will assert his claims for defects against the consignor within a period of 12 months in the event of justified complaints which are reported to him no later than 3 weeks after the close of the auction. Claimed individual lots must be returned with unaltered, unlabelled lot card, otherwise a return is excluded. In the event of a successful claim, the auctioneer will refund the purchase price, including premium, to the buyer; any further claim, including reimbursement of inspection and postage expenses or interest, is excluded. If you wish to have the item examined by a BPP expert, this requires the auctioneer's notification and consent. In the case of deviating colour assignments for lots already BPP-inspected, the auctioneer may decide at his own discretion whether or not to accept a complaint. Only in the case of forgery or falsification will the auctioneer reimburse the costs of a BPP inspector. Liability for physical injury and damage to health remains unaffected.
4. The lot is knocked down to the highest bidder after three calls. In justified cases, the auctioneer may refuse to accept the bid or accept it subject to reservation. He may withdraw the knockdown and re-bid the item if a bid submitted in good time has been overlooked or if the highest bidder does not wish to accept his bid or if there is any other doubt about the knockdown. In the case of conditional knockdowns, the bidder is bound to his bid until clarification with the consignor, but for at least six weeks; the same applies to the submission of underbids and to purchases in subsequent sales.
5. Upon acceptance of the bid, the risk of loss or damage for which the buyer is not responsible shall pass to the buyer. Ownership of the auctioned item shall not be transferred to the purchaser until the auctioneer has received payment in full.
6. The knockdown obliges the bidder to accept the goods.The items are to be accepted immediately after the auction. If the purchaser wishes the goods to be dispatched, this shall be at his expense. If the purchaser is an entrepreneur, the risk shall in this case be transferred upon handover to the forwarding agent or any other person or organisation designated for shipping. If shipping is not possible or reasonable, e.g. due to customs regulations that cannot be met, the Auctioneer shall decide at his own discretion not to ship the lots but merely to make the auctioned lots available to the buyer for collection. In this case, the buyer must collect the auctioned goods from the auctioneer or have them collected at his own expense.
7. The auctioneer receives a commission of 22% of the hammer price from the buyer as well as Euro 3,- per lot. In the case of written bidders, postage and insurance will be charged separately.The statutory VAT of currently 19 % will only be charged on the additional costs (premium, lot fee, postage etc.), as the auctioneer is providing a pure brokerage service. For brokerage services to business customers from other EU countries with a VAT number, the reverse charge procedure is applied, i.e. the commissions, lot fees and other costs are not subject to German VAT. In these cases, the customer is obliged to pay the VAT on these fees in his home country. For brokerage services to business customers from a third country, no VAT is payable if the entrepreneurial status is proven in an appropriate manner. Intermediary services to private customers from third countries are also subject to VAT. Invoices issued during the auction are only valid subject to verification for errors.
8. The invoice amount is due upon acceptance of the bid and payable in cash or by bank transfer. Payments by external buyers who have bid in writing or by telephone are due within 10 days of delivery of the invoice, at the latest three weeks after the auction, unless a separate individual agreement has been made with the express consent of the auctioneer.
9. In the event of default in payment, interest of 2% per month shall be charged as damages for default. In addition, the auctioneer may choose to demand fulfilment or, after setting a deadline, compensation for non-fulfilment; the compensation may also be calculated in such a way that the item is auctioned again in a new auction and the defaulting buyer must pay for any reduced proceeds compared to the previous auction and the special costs of the repeated auction, including the auctioneer's fees.
10. Written bids and bids sent by email will always be carried out in the interest of the buyer, but without guarantee. Best or highest bids will be auctioned up to 5 times the starting price. ‘Bid’ lots will be knocked down at the highest bid and cannot be included in any purchase price limitation or bid limit. Bids on ‘Bid’ lots will also be executed independently in such cases. Customers who wish to bid by telephone during the auction must bid at least the estimated price and place an order in writing before the auction. In the event of unavailability, the auctioneer will fulfil the order at the estimated price. In the case of telephone bids, the auctioneer accepts no liability for the establishment of the connection.
11. As long as catalogue owners, auction participants and bidders do not state otherwise, they assure that they are acquiring the catalogue and the items from the Third Reich era depicted therein only for the purposes of civic education, defence against unconstitutional endeavours, art or science, research or teaching, reporting on current events or history or similar purposes (§§ 86a, 86 of the German Criminal Code).
12. The Auctioneer guarantees the authenticity of all auctioned individual lots of the German Classical period up to 1875 to the successful bidder for a period of five years. If the lots have a current expertisation by an association expertiser who is liable for his expertisation, the Auctioneer is only liable to the extent that the expertiser is liable to him. In any case, proof of forgery requires the submission of a clear BPP certificate or BPP ‘false’ certificate. BPP ‘false’ signature is required. Liability is limited to repayment of the purchase price.
13. Place of performance and legal venue for commercial transactions is Mülheim a.d. Ruhr. German law shall apply. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) is excluded.
14. Should any of the foregoing conditions be wholly or partially invalid, the validity of the remaining provisions shall remain unaffected. The post-auction sale forms part of the auction. The right of withdrawal and return for distance contracts does not apply, pursuant to § 312d, paragraph 4, no. 5 of the German Civil Code (BGB).