A special event in Wil (St. Gallen), Switzerland, proved to be a highlight in the schedules of several hundred stamp collectors and investors from all over the world this week: On the evening of Friday, 4 June 2010, the world’s most significant stamp auction at the Rapp auction house, ended with an overall sales figure of 17.2 million Swiss francs. This total definitely exceeded all expectations: what had been forecast was a sales figure of around 13 million francs.
The auction in Wil confirmed the upward trend of prices on the stamp market that has largely taken hold. Emotionally charged and tense bidding skirmishes were fought out – including online – by several thousand potential buyers from roughly two dozen countries. Spokeswoman, Marianne Rapp Ohmann, summed up the mood on the market thus: “It has been demonstrated that individual items and collections, especially high-quality objects, can realize top prices.”
Collection achieves quarter of a million
The “once-in-a-century” Ticino collection, previously believed to be lost, reaped proceeds totaling 4.5 million francs on the first day of the auction; the predicted sale price had been between three and four million francs. The final day was all about high-end collections. Demand was exemplified by the much-coveted “Schloss Neersen” collection: It sold for 284,000 francs; its starting price had been 50,000 francs. Peter Rapp, who auctioned it, made the following comments: “The Schloss Neersen collection is probably the best European collection we have been able to bring to the market for about 40 years. It includes almost all the top European values.” In addition, everyone present marveled at a global collection with an original estimated value of 40,000 francs that was auctioned for a healthy 232,000 francs.
“Run” on gold coins
The coin auction Peter Rapp held on Thursday afternoon also proved extremely popular: Total sales of coins alone reached more than a half a million Swiss francs – a figure appreciably higher than that of the last Auction organized by Peter Rapp AG at the end of 2008. In particular, there was a “run” on gold coins. The current market situation is once again causing many investors and collectors to increase their purchases of coins, especially gold coins, according to the company’s owner, Peter Rapp.
www.rapp-auktionen.ch
