Spink Reviews 7

Always held spink in high regard until I asked them to sell some of my military medals in there next auction. They never confirmed thay received the medals safely. I had to email them to make sure. I didn't get a pre auction email from them. They were not quick in responding to my emails. Thay didn't enter my medals in the auction as agreed and didn't even bother to tell me. And I didn't receive an auction catalogue. Very disappointed with them.

Shocking. Never reply to emails. So rude and unprofessional.

Disappointed took some coins for turning into cash met a dealer Tim Robinson in a hotel in saffron Walden by appointment with a promise of payment by Tuesday this week still not sold the gold and going on holiday on w4th August need the money for my husbands care home payment

I .don’t want to waste too much of my time regarding my experience dealing with Spink auction house in Hong Kong. This happened a few month ago and I also wrote to them telling them that their services were horrible. No feedbacks what so ever. So I said to myself——forget it!

What an old style proper business
I made an appointment for a coin valuation
I met Gregory Edmund
A thoroughly professional man
Valuation was precise , comprehensive and free!
The perfect way to deal with the public

I sold 72 rare coins at auction. Mainly hammered and milled and French.

Placed coins in the best auctions for good return.

Sellers pay 21% on hammer and 1% handling charge plus 20% vat on the commission and handling.
Very pleased with the outcome.

I am new to using Spink and I will be updating my review once I gain more experience using Spink Live website and bidding on it. So far the following are my observations:

1. The item I bid on has the following description:

"Subject to 5% tax on Hammer Price in addition to 20% VAT on Buyer’s Premium."

That's a bit confusing. A 5% tax is added to the Hammer price (reason for adding 5% on some items is still unknown to me), plus 20% are added as a Buyer's Premium, plus a 20% VAT which increases Buyer's premium to 24%. So if HP is £100 add 5% = £105 and then add 24% = £24 + £105 = £129. So roughly one must add 29% to move faster. Then one has to add the still unknown shipping charge etc. That can be learned of course, by gaining experience in bidding.

I have decided to not continue bidding on the item I bid on since the Buyer's Premium and all the extras made it unaffordable and unreasonably expensive for me and for most other bidders I am sure as well.

2. There are no SUBMIT buttons. Only check marks to proceed. It's a bit unusual.

3. For such a less than well oiled software (website) I don't see why Spink should charge a whopping 20% buyer's premium, then add another 5% mysterious tax on HP, and then VAT on top, but that's only my opinion. Other auctions I am participating at include VAT in the Buyer's Premium, making their interface less expensive and easier to use.

4. The buying terms, information on Buyer's Premium etc. is only accessible via one tiny link at the very bottom of the website as if those were almost a closely guarded secret.

5. Photos of items are often way too small in order to observe the condition (grade) of the items and that's a big drawback.

I rate at 3 stars so far since it was quite hard to find information about Buyer's Premium (20%) etc.

Let's see if I can give 4 stars by gaining more experience bidding on Spink, even that the 20% BP with all the other extras stands in the way of doing so.