What do we define as a "provenanced" coin? Just musing.
- anything illustrated in a pre-1971 document of any kind, whether a minor FPL or a Dardel line drawing in
Cohen automatically counts, even if you bought the coin on fleabay
- I generally think of a coin that has appeared in any printed and illustrated pre 1990 sale as having a
provenance. 1990 is arbitrary but it essentially means prior to the collecting career of most of us, and that means finding that
provenance means having
had to go back in time
- I also regard any coin that has appeared in two modern sales, with the initial appearance in a first class venue at least 10 years ago, to have a
provenance albeit a somewhat weaker one. So for example a coin sold by a
CNG e-auction that also appeared in an early NAC sale. Or a NAC sale coin ex the Goodman
collection sold in
CNG 43-47.
- I don't regard any retail purchase as being of significance in
provenance terms, if it wasn't illustrated in a printed
catalogue.
Nor any e-auction sale unless supported by some earlier better printed sale.
Nor the mention of a collector name in a context not associated with a major sale.
Nor a coin whose only appearance was in a modern sale, even if a first class one such as
Triton. These are just "where and from whom I bought the coin". That doesn't count as
provenance to me. That's just purchase records. And if I buy from a dealer who bought at a recent
auction, I record it as "NAC 123 via dealer J.Bloggs". In other words the interim ownership by the dealer isn't of consequence, only the printed sale the coin appeared in.
With this hierarchy in mind, my
collection can be split into
1. old
provenance coins as I defined above
2. coins bought from venues that are on the record and the sale can be found in
acsearch etc
3. no
provenance at all, and you'll just have to rely on my vouching for it when I say I bought it from a prestigious dealer or collector.
I've bought a lot privately over the years. So the last category is worrisome as it's much too large. But that's what I'm working on...
It's also a huge dilemma how to memorialise the
provenance once found. Of course I mark pages with post it tabs and include information in my spreadsheet. But when I would come to sell, and mention that a coin
comes from an Otto Helbing FPL in the 1940s, how can I demonstrate that to a dealer and
his customer, neither of whom have my range of catalogues? I have considered copying and printing the coin image and description and a heading from the title page. A lot of
work, and may prove inconveniently large for a seller to deal with.. One idea I've
had is to write/print a link to an online record that includes a photo of a coin and its
provenance. With short form links that's possible. For example
http://flic.kr/p/dVhhLd/Which can be shortened on a coin ticket to an easily writeable length (NB this uses Base58 code which uses all upper and lower case letter and numbers except 0 O l I for avoidance of confusion), as follows
flic.kr/p/dVhhLd/
As you can see I've added
provenance information below the coin. All this is a lot of
work. But in terms of how it can enhance the value of a
collection if done properly, it's time well spent