Hello everyone,
I started noticing problems with some auction houses. I already talked about an example from Western Pomerania, mostly focusing on the city of Demmin: https://en.numista.com/forum/topic146275.html ). Summarized, they were selling a coin labeled as being either from Stettin or Demmin, but upon reading the catalogue it turned out that the coin was from…Schlawe! Interestingly, they labeled the coin with the correct Dannenberg Pommern number, but completely ignored what he said some pages beforehand.
I looked further and found another example at one of the biggest auction houses in Poland, one which has sold almost 400,000 coins during it's existence. The coin was sold (!) as the number Dann Po. 190. Problem? It was actually Dann Po. 191. The description of the lot was actually correct, but for 191, not 190. This can put an inexperienced buyer at risk of buying the wrong coin. As far as I know, the Dannenberg Pommern catalogue isn't easy to find in physical form, so some buyers need to rely on the auction house's information.
So, what could've happened here?
The first example isn't quite obvious. I have thought of two options. On one hand, there is a chance that the seller didn't fully read through the catalogue and only relied on the pictures at the back of it, without using the texts and explanations in the beginning. On the other hand, it's possible that the catalogue is quite outdated, especially considering that it was written in 1893. Maybe the seller had access to some other sources, confirming his opinion.
So, what about the second case? The seller definitely read the catalogue and the coins are both from the same mint, so they couldn't have found anything new in that case. Again, there are two options. It's possible the seller is misleading, since the Dann Po 191 is way more common than Dann Po 190. 191 sold about three times in Poland, 190 wasn't sold once. (I personally doubt that, considering how much they sold already. They wouldn't let themselves ruin their reputation like that) So, the more likelly option is that the seller actually made a typo. On keyboards, the numbers on the right have the 1 very close to the 0, making a typo incredibly probable.
Now, what's the conclusion? I found three, very important ones.
A) Remember, typos can impact things by a lot!
B) Auction houses need to proofread what they post. Their offers are made by humans, they make mistakes too. Not always intentionally.
C) I'd say this one is the most important for you, dear reader and collector. Always check offers with the catalogues you own or compare them to others. You should also check if there are other offers of the same coin and check if they look alike. No matter how big a seller is, they can (and will) make errors eventually. Don't trust them 100%ly. Or else you'll get the wrong coin, usually without a good chance of appeal. And if there is one, going through it is very tedious.
So, thank you for reading and have a nice day! :)