"I appreciate that you informed me about the irregularities of the black Minox IIIs camera, and I immediately informed the buyer, as I replied to you.  If you or any other person had informed us before the sale, we would have been able to withdraw the camera from the auction.  Unfortunately, none of the buyers who examined the camera before the sale made any mention of the serial number or other discrepancies.  Several prominent Minox collectors examined this camera and were in the sale room bidding on it.  The buyer had also personally examined the camera before the sale.

Unfortunately your information was not received while the buyer was still here.  Immediately after receiving your first e-mail, I contacted the buyer and passed on your concerns to him, and naturally offered a full refund. We are not in the business of selling fakes.  As an auction house, we receive consignments and sell them on commission.  If we know that something is fake, we do not accept it for auction.  If we accept an item and list it in the catalog, then later find out that it is a fake, we withdraw the lot before the sale.  This was the case with the Nippon camera offered as lot number 177.  After the catalog was printed, and shortly before the auction took place, it was deteremined that the camera was not completely original and the camera was withdrawn from the sale before the beginning of the auction.

Serious camera collectors, dealers, and auction houses must work together to prevent the increasing number of fakes.  This is a grave problem that requires cooperation.  In that spirit of cooperation, even competing auction houses help each other.  For example, on the most recent auction at Christie’s South Kensington, there was a Stereo Leica prototype camera offered for sale.  The consignors represented to Christies that the camera had been authenticated by the factory, and Christies listed it in their catalog without confirming with the factory.  Christies had not been aware that the same camera had been proposed to the Breker auction house in Cologne Germany several years ago.  At that time, Mr. Breker contacted Leica Shop to help authenticate the camera. With our direct contacts to the Leica factory and museum, we were able to examine the consigned camera and the original prototype from the Leica Museum.  It was confirmed that the consigned camera was a forgery, and Breker did not accept the consignment.  Records and notes were made regarding the fake camrea.  Recently, when the same camera appeared in Christie’s catalog, Mr. Breker informed Christies of the known fake and it was withdrawn without fanfare.

Since Breker and Christies are competitors, it would have been easy for Breker to wait until after the auction and then blast Christies as being incompetent and negligent.  Fortunately for all of us, Breker is a gentleman who had the good sense to follow a correct procedure and not just take a cheap shot at a competitor.

In the case of our Minox IIIs, you could have done the same if you had seen the problem before the auction.  On the other hand, if you only saw the listing after the auction, then your first e-mail would have been enough to allow us to inform the buyer, which we did.  This should have been the end of the story.

The problem becomes aggravated when you wait until after the sale, and then intentionally put inflammatory information on your web site.  The buyer has already been contacted and offered a full refund.  The buyer was not “taken advantage of” as you state on your web page.  To use such defamatory language shows that you are still carrying a grudge against us.  This is again a cause for legal action against you for intentionally trying to ruin our reputation, a matter which we will discuss with our legal counsel."