Expert reports and valuations for cigars
I will tell you
what you have there.
I check cigars for authenticity and establish their value. For customs, public authorities and the courts, and equally for collectors and private clients. You receive the result in writing, depending on the scope as a brief assessment or as a fully documented expert report with photographs and reasons for each point examined.
My reports are privately commissioned reports. I am not publicly appointed and sworn.
The difference
I assess.
I do not trade.
Anyone who sells cigars has an interest in your buying them. There is nothing wrong with that, it is their business. It simply makes what they tell you something other than an expert report.
I do not sell cigars, I do not buy them and I do not broker them. I hold no trading stock. I can make a recommendation, but I do not arrange the deal: acting as an intermediary dealer in tobacco goods is a sensitive matter in tax terms as well, and the German Tobacco Duty Act (Tabaksteuergesetz) is clear on this point.
That is why it costs me nothing to tell you that a box has been badly stored or that the cigar band does not match the contents.
I say what I find. Even when it is not what you want to hear.
Three ways
What I do and who I am
For customs, public authorities and the courts
Every step of the examination documented.
Authentication, valuation for customs purposes, findings on quantity, condition and value for ongoing proceedings. Every step of the examination is documented item by item.
For collectors and private clients
An assessment, not an offer to buy.
Inherited, received as a gift or sitting in a cabinet for years. I check authenticity and condition and establish the value, for the insurer, for an estate or for your own decision.
Who is making the assessment
No purchase, no commission.
Whoever assesses your cigars should not be a stranger. Where my assessment comes from, how I work and where I draw the limit of what I state.
Process
Three steps to an expert report
You describe what it is about
What you have, where it came from, what you want to know. Through the form, by email or by telephone.
I look at what you have
From photographs, on site with you, or sent to me by arrangement. How shipping works
You receive it in writing
Depending on the scope, as a brief assessment or as a fully documented expert report, with photographs and reasons for each point examined. The free brief analysis of a single box from photographs I answer, on working days, usually within 24 hours.
Discretion
What stays confidential
I treat your instruction in confidence. I do not pass on your details, the origin of the cigars or the result to third parties, I do not name you as a reference and I do not show your items to anyone.
There are two limits I state openly, because nobody can rule them out: statutory duties, and instructions in which a public authority is my client. What that means in detail
For context
What you will not find here
- No appointment that I do not hold
- I am not publicly appointed and sworn under section 36 of the German Trade Regulation Act (Gewerbeordnung), and I do not use any such title. My reports are privately commissioned reports.
- No legal or tax advice
- I establish facts. I do not give legal or tax advice. In Germany, legal advice is reserved for lawyers, and assistance in tax matters for the tax advisory professions.
- No client testimonials
- People who instruct me are usually dealing with a private matter. That does not belong on a website.
- No figures without evidence
- You will not find client numbers here, or similar figures that nobody can verify.
Tell me about your matter
Whether you are a public authority or a private client: a short description is enough to begin with. A brief analysis of a single box from photographs costs nothing, and you have my assessment, on working days, usually within 24 hours.
- Telephone
- +49 176 20150975
- info (at) zigarrenexpertise.com