As I peruse sales on both
auction and fixed
price sites, I keep seeing what I would guess I would call
provenance remarks in the sales listings.
For example, the one I just saw was "from
collection of well known author."
Another: "Prominent NY collector."
Plenty of other examples like this. Do these nebulous descriptions actually
help with
selling a coin? Does anyone really care? Does it even matter and is it even honest?
Name the collector or shut up about it is how I see it. I don't see these things as actual meaningful
provenance. If you name the real collector, no matter how obscure or minor, that means more to me that some BS like "well known author" or "prominent wonderful person." Why would any seller even list stuff like this? I have to admit, I am not even a fan of some of the big
collections that are widely sold under some initials, yet we don't really know who the person was. I will take some obscure collector over the cryptic stuff any day. Why is this even done?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Virgil