What is Dante Alighieri Collection?

[Taras]

Good evening,
I bought a coin with provenience "Ex Dante Alighieri Collection", and I wish to know something about that.
Can someone help me?

[Lloyd Taylor]

A pseudonym for an unknown collector who wished to remain anonymous on the sale of his collection... these types of pseudonyms are also a marketing ploy by the auction house to add an aura of mystery if not credibility to an often average collection of which they are disposing.

You'll find some discussion of it here ... https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=57026.0

Including...

I actually found this post doing a google search.  If the previous owner was THE D. Alighieri, you really should care.  As in Dante Alighieri, of Dante's Inferno, Paradise Lost, etc.  Quite an old pedigree.

Alfred

I record the provenances of my coins when I have them but I don't care much
if it's from the 'D. Alighieri Collection' or the 'J. S. Wagner Collection'.
I don't know these people and it adds nothing to my enjoyment of the coin that they once owned it.
If my collection gets big and interesting enough to be sold with my name on it I don't expect
the buyers to care. I also don't expect my children or grandchildren to 'revere' my coins, because they won't.
They'll sell them first chance they get. Forming a coin colection is not the best way to become famous.
My collection is for me alone and all I want is that whoever I leave it to doesn't sell it very much under its value.
After all, we need the constant stream of old collection coins back onto the market  to continue collecting.

I absolutely agree with you, these are exactly my own thoughts and I really couldn't have put it better myself.

Alex

"D. Alighieri" was actually a famous and important collection, and you will regularly find these offerings at auction. i don't know who he was, but i guess that's the point of a pseudonym.

i find provenance very interesting.
knowing who had my coin before me may not be important to some, but i get as much of a kick from knowing that Arthur Conan Doyle or John Quincy Adams (for example) may have once held and studied my coin as i do from the fact that it had some emperor's name stamped on it. after all that is as much a part of it's history as centuries buried in the ground, a fact many new collectors declare as fascinating to them.
it seems funny to me that some people will say a hole in a coin adds interest but others believe a provenance doesn't.
to each his own.

~ Peter

Sometimes pseudonyms are used, but it helps us put a particular collection into context.  A few important collections sold during the 20th century were sold using pseudonyms to protect the privacy of the collector.  (In the case of D. Alighieri it is a pseudonym)

Best,

Alfred

Yes, that's one more reason to not care about a provenance if it's a fake name. I didn't notice at the time.

Of course, a real, important provenance is something. I have a few ex Righetti coins though I wouldn't have paid much extra. I would pay a little more for an ex Aulock coin. In the case of the worst John Quincy Adams coins I've seen 90% of the value is the provenance. At least his decendants can always 'find' some more.  

If I ever find out who 'D. Alighieri' is I may care more. Or not.

[mcbyrne21]

Does it seem disingenuous to anyone else to name the collections after actual historical people?  At first glance, a novice collector might actually think the coins were owned at some point by Dante.  After all, he lived in Italy (where you would think there would be plenty of Roman coins laying around) and obviously from his writings had an interest/knowledge of antiquity. 

Maybe if I ever sell the old family piano I will list it as being from the W. A. Mozart collection.

[dafnis]

The old debate whether pedigree or not. Of course everyone is entitled to own opinions, and in the world we live in, it is proven pedigree adds value to a coin in market-sense.
Another story is about what we could call levels of pedigree - just because I sell my collection, then everyone calls it the "xxx colln." won't give it pedigree. You'd need some years, something extra, such as a colln. from an important person, or an important collection.

I do actually own a Republican denarius from the Dante Alighieri colln. This one was aucitoned last year by CNG.

[David M3]

Very nice coin to add to your collection providance or not.