About
Oliver Markus
Expert for cigars
I assess cigars, including for clients outside Germany. My work combines established expertise with a commitment to precision. I sell nothing and I take no commission, anyone who asks me gets an assessment, not an offer to buy.
Portrait edited with AI.
How I came to this work
I started as a collector, not at a desk. I have been collecting and tasting for more than thirty years, and I had been collecting for a long time before I wrote my first expert report.
My understanding of the subject grew out of dealing with rare and difficult pieces. From the history of cultivation through fermentation to the details of a cigar band.
That is how it became the work I do today. I know what a collector's piece means to its owner, and I examine it with corresponding care.
I sign every expert report with my name. Anyone who wants to know who carried out the examination should not have to guess.
How I work
I say what I find
Even when it is not what you want to hear. An assessment that pleases you but is wrong is of no use to you.
I stay independent
I do not sell cigars and I do not broker them either. What I tell you rests on the matter itself, not on a deal waiting behind it.
I say where my limits lie
If I cannot assess something with certainty, you will hear it from me. A plain “I cannot say that for certain” is worth more than a figure that only looks like certainty.
For context
My qualifications
What I am able to assess comes from the subject itself. So I tell you both: what I base my judgement on, and what I am not.
- Thirty years with the subject
- I have been collecting for more than thirty years, and tasting for just as long. A good part of what an examination comes down to is in no book: how a well kept wrapper feels, how a box smells that has stood too damp, and how far a series may vary within itself before that becomes a suspicion.
- Two engineering degrees
- Dipl.-Ing. (FH) and Dipl.-Wirt.-Ing. (FH), two German engineering degrees. They say nothing about cigars, but they do say something about method: a finding counts only once it is substantiated and documented so that someone else can follow it. That is how my reports are built.
- Brands and vintages
- Cuban and non-Cuban brands, current production as well as older and discontinued lines, special editions, questions of vintage, and how prices form on the main collectors' markets. Where my knowledge reaches its limit, I tell you so instead of making an estimate.
- My own reference collection
- Factory codes, security features, documented deviations from them, and known counterfeit patterns. I compare against that record instead of judging from memory.
- No public appointment
- I am not publicly appointed and sworn under section 36 of the German Trade Regulation Act (Gewerbeordnung), and I hold no corresponding title. My reports are privately commissioned reports. If a court or an authority appoints me in specific proceedings, the procedural law that applies there governs.
Where I work
There are three routes to an expert report. Which one fits depends on the case.
From photographs. For a first assessment, good photographs are often enough: the closed box from every side, with the seal and the box bottom, the opened box, and a single cigar in close-up.
On site. For large collections, in matters of inheritance, where the condition needs to be recorded before a dispute, and whenever the storage also has to be assessed, I come to you. We agree in advance how a visit will proceed and what it will cost.
By post. For individual valuable pieces and limited series, agreed in advance. I do not insure the consignment, and we settle beforehand whether the route is worth it in your case. I will state two further limits openly: I do not take cigars into safekeeping where proper payment of tax on them is not documented, and seized or impounded goods I examine on site at the authority.
I also work for clients outside Germany, applying the same examination criteria.
Would you like to know whether I am the right person for your case?
Describe briefly what it is about. I will tell you whether I can help.
- Phone
- +49 176 20150975
- info (at) zigarrenexpertise.com