Provenance and Dealers
Zoins
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How common is it to include dealers in a provenance or pedigree list?
I don't recall ever seeing dealer names on slabs but I've seen them in articles, especially for coins with a 100+ year ownership history.
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I recall a Legend Nickel.
In the Legend case, Legend was an owner right?
I'm more thinking of transactional where the dealer handles the sale of a coin.
If the dealer bought and resold the coin as JA did with the Dexter 1804, is that a transaction only? Or are you thinking more of a Heritage type consignment where the dealer does not take ownership?
I'm hoping it's not that complicated
But I get your point, there's the case where a dealer buys a coin for their inventory vs. is representing a client.
A dealer who doesn't own the coin shouldn't be part of the ownership history (pedigree or provenance).
A dealer who owns it as inventory probably shouldn't be in the provenance but a dealer who owns it as a collector should be. The problem is that's an indistinct line for many collector/dealers.
Yeah...and too many folks want to get their name on the slab. We need rules, dammit!
Would it be more valuable if prominent dealer A owned it vs smoe local mom and pop shop type of dealer?
I’m more interested in tracking history than value, so I’m not really thinking along those lines.
Wouldn't or shouldn't that info be found/included in Coinfacts?
If a prominent dealer that I respect had a coin in his inventory at one time, that would be relevant in my purchasing decision, because for certain dealers, that means the coin met that dealer’s standards of quality.
But what if you need that history to become great?
Dealer owners seem to pop up in older pedigree chains pretty frequently - it's certainly useful information when the ownership chain is a bit hazy. There are coins in my personal collection that will have my name in their pedigree for obvious reasons. I also suspect that certain coins that I have bought for inventory will include my name or Kagin's at some point, but in those cases, only time will tell...
What is now proved was once only imagined. - William Blake
I track provenance as closely as possible on coins I own. I'll even research it if none is forthcoming from the seller. With the early dates that I collect, provenance chains will often have dealers listed, sometimes multiple times on certain coins.
Regarding slabs, I occasionally see dealers listed, but often enough, they are the type of dealer that holds back their top material for their own personal collection. Then, when they've accumulated enough, or accomplish a specific goal, or simply need the cash, they sell in a large auction (which is also a nice promotion of their business) that features their material.
I see Steve Hayden's name on slabs from time to time, mostly after he acquired half of Steve Tanenbaum's civil war tokens with Dave Bowers. I know he has a collection, but I believe most of the time it is in reference to tokens that he sold.
Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
Does anyone here ever get a coin reslabbed with a new label without the pedigree name of a minor little known collector?
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
Yes... I had a PerryHall pedigree removed from a few labels
I keep track of dealer provenance. Since most of my coins are raw, it’s important to know from whence they came, plus I like tracking coins’ histories.
I keep track of auction appearances as well.
I don’t keep track of eBay sellers names, rather it goes into my records as ‘ebay’
I don’t see any reason why you wouldn’t want to document the full provenance of the coin.
Could care less and don’t want dealer name on my slabs - out promote my business not theirs.
I do make note in PCGS Inventory source of purchase.
As far as pedigree slabs like Omaha Bank Hoard - yes no problem.
Most dealers don't know anything about the previous owers and could care less. Sometimes the dealer doesn't want you to know who owned the coin previously or more importantly when it was last sold at public auction. If you have that information, you might be able to find out what he paid for the item. I've done that at the shows on occasion with my iPad.
Some previous owners are not worth knowing. This not met to be unkind, but if you are not a well-known or important collector, listing you name on the slab is really more for vanity purposes than anything else.
Two thoughts:
Would then the provenance for well-known or important collectors also be for vanity purposes?
As counterfeiting gets more sophisticated, establishing longer histories is becoming more important for more coins.