A conversation with Jürg Richter

UK: Jürg, SINCONA held its 100th auction today. The company name is quite unusual for an auction house. Many coin enterprises are named after their owner, or the place where they operate. How did you come up with the name?

JR: I spent days thinking about it. After all, I needed a name that hadn’t been used anywhere else; and a name that was easy to pronounce in the most important languages. Whenever I had an idea, I checked it online. But no matter what I thought of, there was always a company somewhere in Brazil or northern Poland with the same name. I rejected dozens of ideas until I came up with SINCONA. SINCONA is an abbreviation of Swiss International Coin Auction AG – a name that is too long for people to remember. That’s why we have become part of the numismatic world under the short form of SINCONA.

UK: Founded on 1 May 2011, SINCONA AG reached an important milestone less than a year later when you sold the most expensive coin ever auctioned in Europe at the time for CHF 3.6 million on 9 October 2012. It is extremely unusual for an auction house to be at the top of its game right from the start.

JR: When I founded SINCONA in 2011, I already had almost 30 years of experience in the coin trade under my belt. And SINCONA also had the huge advantage of inheriting UBS’s numismatic business, so to speak. In 2010, UBS decided that its numismatic department no longer fitted with its customer portfolio. The question was what would happen to the inventory and the employees. I proposed a management buyout. We came together, had some talks, and found a solution that was fair for both parties. That marked the beginning of SINCONA.

UK: So you had a large customer base right from the start?

JR:  No, it wasn’t quite that easy, because we couldn’t just make use of the numismatic addresses of UBS – it would have violated banking secrecy. We had to find a more creative solution. Eventually, we agreed on the following: UBS would send our first two auction catalogues to its customers. We enclosed a letter explaining the situation and asked customers to provide us with their addresses. And it worked out perfectly.

UK: What was it like not to build up such a large auction house slowly, but rather to jump in right at the top?

JR: Well, we could discuss the term ’at the top’ – however, I already had over a quarter of a century of experience in coin trading by that point, so…

UK: Could you tell us a little more about that?

JR: I got my first job at the SKA Monetarium on Zurich’s Bahnhofsstrasse on 1 May 1985. There, I learned a tremendous lot from my fantastic colleagues Brian Silk and Kurt Zimmermann. Unfortunately, the Monetarium closed in 1996 when SKA took over Bank Leu and decided not to have two numismatic departments within the same group. I then moved to the Frank Sternberg coin dealership. That’s, by the way, where I conducted my very first auction. I'll never forget it: The waiter brought a cup of coffee, it was knocked over and spilled onto my keyboard. I turned it upside down straight away, and everything seemed to be working normally at first. But the longer I worked with the keyboard, the more coffee seeped in, causing more and more keys to stop working. It was a tough start to my first auction – but an unforgettable one, nevertheless. 

In 1998, again on 1 May, I moved to the numismatic department of UBS in Basel. After Lutz Neumann, Christian Winterstein’s successor, retired, I was offered the position of department head. By then, we were operating the gold and numismatic counters in Zurich, Basel and Geneva. Well, looking back, compared to the numismatic department of UBS at that time, SINCONA seems to be much more streamlined and compact.

UK: You were born in 1963, which means you were just 22 years old in 1985. How did you know so early on that you wanted to work in the coin trade?

JR:  I’ve always been interested in coins, even as a teenager. It all started in 1977. I found a 5-rappen piece of 1898 in my change. I found it fascinating to imagine that my own grandfather might have used it to pay for something. Of course, it was completely worn down. I then bought my first Numispost and discovered that the 5-rappen piece of 1898 is – unfortunately – very common. However, I also realised that there were much rarer coins. So I went to the National Bank and got boxes full of 5-rappen rolls. I picked out the rare years and sold them to coin dealer Werner Bucher. As a 14-year-old, I was already earning around 50 Swiss Francs a week by doing this!

UK: That was a considerable amount of money for a teenager in the late 1970s! Nevertheless, you chose to study economics at the University of St Gallen.

JR: I quickly realised that it was far too theoretical for me. I wasn’t a particularly good student. I always sat at the very back and when I got too bored, I would read the daily newspaper or, even better, numismatic magazines. In between, I worked part-time at Werner Merk’s coin dealership in Zurich. One winter’s day, Werner Merk broke his leg. He sat there with no one to run the shop for a few weeks. At the time, I thought: “No problem! My studies aren’t that important. I can do it.” This caused me to visit various other coin dealers in Zurich. At one point, a manager of SKA Monetarium approached me and asked: “Wouldn’t you like to turn your hobby into a profession?” I quickly agreed, and I’m glad about it every day. I would have been a very unhappy economist.

UK: You’ve been doing this ever since, and you’ve now held the 100th auction sale of your own auction house. Looking back, what were some of the most memorable moments?

JR: Strangely enough, it’s not the highest bids that spring to mind, but the moments of deepest crisis. On 11 September 2001, UBS Auction 52 took place at the Savoy. Everything was normal, and then people suddenly came in and told us what had happened in New York. We stood there wondering whether we should cancel the auction. But it was all so unimaginable that we just carried on. I didn’t see the images until I got home and turned on the TV. If I were in that situation today, I would probably decide differently, but hindsight is always 20/20.

UK: It was a terrible moment for all of us – one that none of us will ever forget. However, was there another auction where you had to make an important decision on the spot? One that you don’t regret?

JR: Of course. Look, SINCONA was holding a banknote auction. And as soon as we started in the morning, nothing worked, really nothing. Why so? Microsoft had installed an update overnight that lead to a breakdown of all our programmes. And there I was, sitting in a room full of people, wondering what to do. The answer was as simple as that: nothing. Our auction couldn’t go ahead. I apologised to everyone in the room and covered all their travel expenses, including flight tickets and whatever. I also offered significantly discounted terms if they came back when the auction could actually take place. The news spread like wildfire. Believe me or not, it came down as the best advertisement for the new company that SINCONA was at the time. And what’s most important is that you have to try to make the best of every situation, even the most hopeless ones.

UK: Well, your ability to cope even with the most difficult circumstances is well known and – as I imagine – often greatly admired (or envied). Finally, I’d like to ask you this, Jürg: When will the new edition of the “HMZ Catalog” – arguably the most important reference book on Swiss coins from antiquity to the present – appear, which you’ve authored together with Ruedi Kunzmann, your longtime friend, SINCONA colleague and outstanding expert on Swiss minted and printed money?

JR: As you might guess, studying the coins of a particular field in such a systematic way is always fun, particularly when Ruedi is involved. Let me give you this: we are both working intensely on the new editions of volume 1 and 2 of the Neuer HMZ-Katalog (’New HMZ catalog’). And I'd venture to promise: volume 2 will be available to collectors in a year’s time; in full colour and featuring numerous new illustrations, additions and up-to-date price information. So there’s something to look forward to!

UK: So we can only hope that you continue to enjoy coins just as much as you have so far. By the way, have you ever regretted getting into the coin business?

JR: No, never ever. I might have the best job in the world. There's a wonderful team around me I have the pleasure to work with, and then, there's just this: every day comes with new surprises – I love that, no doubt about it. If the day ever comes when I get up and don’t feel like going to work, it’ll be time to stop. But hopefully, that’s still a long way off!

Talking with Jürg Richter, founder, owner, and current CEO of SINCONA AG, was Ursula Kampmann