Koehler & Corinphila Holding GmbH
The group of stamp auction houses known as the Global Philatelic Network is globally active and well-known worldwide in philately with its companies of long-established tradition. The Wiesbaden-based stamp auction house of Heinrich Koehler is the oldest stamp auction house in Germany and was founded as long ago as 1913. Corinphila Auctions of Zurich is the oldest stamp auction house in Switzerland, founded in 1921, and has held stamp auctions since 1925. John Bull Auctions is the oldest stamp auction company in Hong Kong. H.R. Harmers was founded in 1940 in the U.S.A. and has auctioned the collection of the American President Franklin D. Roosevelt among others. The annual auction turnover of all the companies is between 25 and 30 million euros.
Virtually all the companies have for many years been ranked among the leading companies in their respective home countries. As a group in an increasingly globalised market it is one of the three leading auction groups for the marketing of high-value collectors’ stamps and is well prepared for the future.
About the auction companies
The stamp auction house of Heinrich Koehler, the oldest stamp auction house in Germany, holds the current world record auction price for a German stamp amounting to approximately EUR 1.18 million (2.3 million German marks in 1985) for one of the most famous stamps of in Germany, the “Baden error of 1851”.
More recently, spectacular realizations were achieved at the auction of the collections of Fritz Kirchner, with a 320,000-euro hammer price for a block of twelve of the first postage stamp of Germany, the Bavaria ‘one kreuzer black’ of 1849. The rarity is that in this block a stamp was inadvertently printed upside-down on the sheet!
Corinphila Auctions of Zürich, as the oldest stamp auction house in Switzerland with a branch in Amsterdam, has achieved spectacular results in Swiss Confederation as well as in Chinese philately. A cover of 1850 with eight copies of the 21⁄2 rappen “Winterthur” stamp was knocked down for 480,000 Swiss francs in 2009. A year earlier when Corinphila in Zurich had offered a block of 15 copies of the Chinese ‘red revenue’ issue of 1897 the bidding went from 30,000 to 640,000 Swiss francs.
The Corinphila office in Amstelveen near Amsterdam achieved a spectacular record price in philately in 2010, when the first three stamps of the Netherlands of 1852 in ‘gutter pairs’ with extra wide spacing between the stamps changed hands at auction for 60,000 euros.
H.R. Harmer in the U.S.A., in addition to the collection of the American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, also sold the collections, which were world-renowned in philately, of the American industrialist Alfred F. Lichtenstein (CIBA President) and Alfred H. Caspary. With the Caspary collection H.R. Harmer sold one of the most famous items in United States philately, the ‘Eliza Dawson cover’ of 1851 franked with postage stamps of the United States as well as rare Hawaiian ‘missionary’ stamps, into the collection of the French tobacco industrialist Maurice Burrus.
John Bull in Hong Kong was founded in 1977 and is today the oldest stamp auction house in Hong Kong. Most recently, John Bull made headlines when a special stamp issued in 1980 by the postal administration of the People’s Republic of China for the ‘year of the monkey’, the so-called ‘red monkey’ in a complete counter sheet of 80 copies found a new owner at a hammer price of 1.1 million Hong Kong dollars (approximately 110,000 euros). It is worth noting that when first issued in 1980 the ‘red monkey’ stamp cost the collector the counter sheet of 80 copies as much as 16 euros!
SPECIAL PRINTINGS
![The beautifully centered 3c and 10c special printing (soft paper) were hammered at Nutmeg, now H.R. Harmer in 2008 for respectively 135,000 and 90,000 dollar. The beautifully centered 3c and 10c special printing (soft paper) were hammered at Nutmeg, now H.R. Harmer in 2008 for respectively 135,000 and 90,000 dollar.](https://hk-files.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/files/files-local/pictures/special.jpg)
The beautifully centered 3c and 10c special printing (soft paper) were hammered at Nutmeg, now H.R. Harmer in 2008 for respectively 135,000 and 90,000 dollar.
The 'one kreuzer black'
A block of twelve copies of the ‘one kreuzer black’, the first German stamp of 1849, with one stamp inverted (second row, first stamp!) 320,000 euros hammer price at Heinrich Koehler in 2009.
WINTERTHUR
Eight stamps of the Swiss ‘Winterthur issue’ of 1850 on a letter; in 2009 this was auctioned by Corinphila Auctions in Zürich for 480,000 Swiss francs.
gutter pairs
The first postage stamps of the Netherlands from the year 1852 in rare “gutter pair" sold for 60.000 euros at Corinphila Veilingen in Amstelveen in 2010.
red revenues
15 Chinese ‘red revenue’ stamps of 1897 were auctioned at Corinphila Auctions in Zürich in 2008 for a hammer price of 640,000 Swiss francs.
red monkey
The “red monkey” of China in a counter sheet of 80 copies made approximately 168,000 euros in 2016 at John Bull in Hong Kong. When first issued in 1980 collectors paid only 20 cents per stamp!