FOUNDING SINCONA: JURG RICHTER

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?

Jürg Richter: 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.

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.

Jürg Richter: 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 and found a solution that was fair for both parties. That marked the beginning of SINCONA.

This means that you had a large customer base right from the start.

Jürg Richter: It wasn't quite that easy, because I couldn't just use the numismatic addresses of UBS. That would have violated banking secrecy. So we had to find a more creative solution. We agreed that UBS would send our first two auction catalogues to its customers. We enclosed a letter explaining the situation and asking customers to provide us with their addresses. It worked out perfectly.

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

Jürg Richter: Well, we could discuss what"at the top" means, but I already had over a quarter of a century of experience in coin trading by that point.

Could you tell us a little more about that?

Jürg Richter: I got my first job at the SKA Monetarium on Zurich's Bahnhofsstrasse on 1 May 1985. There, I learned a tremendous amount 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 where I conducted my very first auction. I will 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. 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. Compared to the numismatic department of UBS at the time, SINCONA is much more streamlined and compact.

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?

Jürg Richter: 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!

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.

Jürg Richter: 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.

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?

Jürg Richter: 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.

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

Jürg Richter: Of course. SINCONA was holding a banknote auction. And when we wanted to start in the morning, nothing worked. Microsoft had installed an update overnight that had disabled all our programmes. There I was, sitting in a room full of people, wondering what to do. The answer was: nothing. The auction couldn't go ahead. I apologised to everyone in the room and covered all their travel expenses, including flight tickets and everything else. I also offered significantly discounted terms if they came back when the auction could actually take place. The news spread like wildfire. It was the best advertisement for the new company that SINCONA was at the time. What's most important is that you have to try to make the best of every situation, even the most hopeless ones.

The SINCONA team at the 2025 Basel Coin Fair. From left to right: Timur Demiral, Michael Otto, Inge Otto, Monika Richter, Ruedi Kunzmann, Jürg Richter. Photo: KW.

When will the new edition of the"Neuer HMZ-Katalog" be published?

Jürg Richter: Studying the coins of a particular field in such a systematic way is always fun. Ruedi Kunzmann and I are working intensively on the new editions of volume 1 and 2 of the Neuer HMZ-Katalog. I can reveal that volume 2 will be available to collectors in a year's time; in full colour and with numerous new pictures, additions and current pricing. So there's something to look forward to!

Then we can only hope that you will continue to enjoy coins as much as you do. Have you ever regretted going into the coin trade?

Jürg Richter: No, never. I might have the best job in the world. I work with a wonderful team, and every day comes with new surprises. 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!

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web