As provenance goes - Where does Hansen rank?
MidLifeCrisis
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OK, this is NOT intended to be a Bash Hansen thread.
Where does Hansen rank among notable provenances?
I enjoy collecting coins with provenance / pedigree. I also enjoy following @Currin 's Hansen Watch thread. I have not read everything about Hansen or his coins, but...I used to think Hansen was just another mega-rich guy chasing registry fame, but now I recognize that he has chosen some great coins for his collection and still been willing to pass on other coins for various reasons.
I think Hansen's stated goal is to form a complete collection like Eliasberg did, only better (i.e. higher grade). Eliasberg had completeness, but included some proofs instead of business strikes and some of his coins were not great.
Others such as Pittman, Norweb, Garrett, etc. had positives and negatives about their collections.
One reason I enjoy coins with provenance is their connection to history in general and numismatic history specifically.
So what do you think? What does the Hansen provenance mean to you and to numismatics now? What will it mean in the future?
Comments
I guess it depends. It seems that many Hansen labeled coins out there weren't part of his " sets". I would instantly reholder those.
I suppose if it were a Pittman/ Hansen coin for example on the label I would be fine with it.
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
That sounds good in theory, but it's worth knowing if you've actually reholdered any.
I've seen quite a few posters quite proud of their Hansen coins that may not have been part of his "sets".
No. But I would 100% do it. I personally don't like them. I reholder coins a lot. In fact I have two in now for reholdering. Then again I'm the guy who reholders medals and commems with the cool side on the obverse rather then the intended obverse
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
How can you tell?
Good to know.
At some point I want to add my name / provenance to my pieces. I want to sell them through an auction house with a long standing website like Stack's or Heritage containing slab photos so there will always be photos of my label, even if someone reholders them
In his blitzkrieg of upgrades and dupes and Hansen becoming a partner in DLRC its not necessarily easy I suppose. Maybe John Bush will chime in.
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
It really comes down to personal preference, I personally could not care less who owned a coin prior to my ownership so the Hanson label means zero to me. In fact I bid less for Hanson coins for two reasons, partly I think its more a marketing thing than anything else, and second because I need to factor in the cost to reholder.
My Collection of Old Holders
Never a slave to one plastic brand will I ever be.
I would sooner have a coin with a regular label rather than one of the garish Hansen ones.
It would be simple to have a reference index for his ex-coins that could be searched if ya just gotta know.
I'm not asking whether or not you like the label...I'm asking your opinion about the provenance.
I too would reholder a Hansen coin because at this point in time they can also be more realistically described as Hansen rejects. Having said that, some day his provenance will be much more significant when those coins were part of a complete set that he assembled........and then sold the set.
OINK
Forgetting about the aesthetics of the label for a second. Since DL became a partner in DRLC there are seemingly hundreds of Hansen labeled coins to choose from at any given moment . When they are sold from the site they are seemingly repopulated. How many Eliasberg or Ford coins do you see on any given site on any given day? I think on the "hero" coins it may mean something one day. On the majority, zilch
m
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
How many Eliasberg or Ford coins do you see on any given site on any given day?
That's a good question. I suppose, though, that we should also wonder how many Eliasberg and Ford coins were reholdered or upgraded and lost the provenance on the holder.
I think it may have some significance in the future but at present does not.
And even that isn't accurate. I'll err on the side of caution and no guts and say it's too soon to tell.
To answer your original question I think it rates very low today
m
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
How many Eliasberg or Ford coins do you see on any given site on any given day?
I'll have to look up Eliasberg, but the Ford auctions contained over 10,000 lots. That's a lot of coins that should have the Ford provenance on them.
Down the road it might if he continues to add great pieces that are historically significant and with numismatic importance.
He already is a prolific accumulator of great coins and he could be one of the great collectors of all time. That is significant.
Given that Hansen is still collecting, I just consider 2 things:
I don't make a distinction for things that were part of the set and upgraded. That's just a timing issue on when it left the sets to me.
That's fine. I consider many coins not in his collection anymore as merely placeholders or fillers as he rapidly continued his quest. I would have probably did the same thing as him and created a stream in which to disperse these coins. In his case a label to market them and place to sell them.
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Also consider he has multiple sets in some categories, so coins from his #2 or #3 set are of course not his finest. They're just hogging the registry.
Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
This is not a criticism of him, but the provenance does nothing for me. Most of the pieces carrying it outside of his registry set are the left overs. Some of them are left overs for good reason.
I am relatively new to the rare coin market. But I have extensive experience in the rare stamp market. It is almost always better to refrain from buying at a single named stamp sale auction as the prices are usually higher. I wonder how true this is in the rare coin market and how much provenance (Hanson, Elisberg,Pogue etc.) factors into price.
In principle, this should not be an issue. Is PCGS not following its own rules when it comes to Hansen? Their pedigree rules in the registry benefits section state:
After your initial pedigree, if you upgrade coins from your set and would like the upgraded coin pedigreed, the Reholder fee of $12 per coin will apply for each coin that is Reholdered. PCGS will not pedigree duplicate coins. You must submit both the upgraded coin and the coin it will be replacing. The coin that will no longer remain in your set will be reholdered without the pedigree and returned to you along with the newly pedigreed coin. ($12 to Reholder the coin with the new pedigree and $12 to Reholder the coin that the pedigree is being removed from, 2 X $12 = $24). Your set must remain 100% complete and in the top five to qualify.
Is Hansen upgrading coins in his sets without having to get the pedigree removed? If so, that dilutes the value of his pedigree. It hurts his and PCGS's integrity in the long run.
IG: DeCourcyCoinsEbay: neilrobertson
"Numismatic categorizations, if left unconstrained, will increase spontaneously over time." -me
DLRC sells coins with his pedigree/label for coins that are inferior to exemplars in his current set.
Zero interest in his provenance, this coming from a person who really values historical provenances
Latin American Collection
This is my major problem with the Hansen pedigree. It seems like he's getting special treatment per the rules. I am not excited when I see a Hansen coin on the market today. When the final set down the road sells, maybe. But it seems like the ones being sold now are rejections/replacements and they got to keep the special pedigree for some reason when the rules say they should lose it... Multiple of the same coin with the Hansen pedigree is going to be bad for the legacy.
Successful transactions with: wondercoin, Tetromibi, PerryHall, PlatinumDuck, JohnMaben/Pegasus Coin & Jewelry, CoinFlip, and coinlieutenant.
Right or wrong when I think provenance in relation to coin collecting my mind goes to names like Eliasberg, Col. Green, Clapp, Farouk etc. Hansen does not enter my thoughts.
0
1 day maybe there will be a lot of Nice Barbers with a label that says the Barbernut Collection!
While a pedigree generally doesn’t appeal to me for a coin, I think one essential element is time. I think DL Hansen has not had his collection long enough for it to be an appealing or interesting pedigree for me. Maybe once his collection stabilizes and is in place for at least 10 years or so it will become more interesting overall. Just my 2c.
TurtleCat Gold Dollars
Exactly. And FWIW, I would not even consider putting my name on the slabs in my collection until I'm done with it. No different than an artist not signing a piece of work until he's done with it, I suppose.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
I’ve been wondering about this for a while. Perhaps it is simply a vanity label and not related to registry rules. After all, people have been able to obtain vanity labels for other things. So perhaps a fee is being paid per item to be labeled with his name on it? It would be the simple answer anyway.
TurtleCat Gold Dollars
Ahhhhhhhh this explains a lot. I can’t believe I didn’t know that.
BHNC #248 … 130 and counting.
I wonder what Eliasberg's numismatic contemporaries thought of his collection as he was building it, and once it was completed.
I guess I consider Provenance as that of demonstrated quality over time. So we may have quality at this point, but not the time to demonstrate it's a stand out collection compared to all before it. I mean after all, if Bezos or Musk decide to start collecting tomorrow it could become less significant. I am not saying its not a fantastic achievement at this moment, but I am not yet seeing mass articles written, Books published, and public programs on the collection just yet. Just that its being compiled. So its a wait and see thing for me.
The fact that PCGS is not enforcing the upgrade rule of reholdering cheapens the provenance. It might as well be DLRC on the holder. I like both Hansen and DLRC but they are doing a disservice to his provenance by flooding the market.
This is similar to what I have seen with the Snow Photoseal. Because he is not just an approval service but also sells coins I have heard some say his sticker means zip. I totally disagree and think his approval is just as good as CAC. The Hansen thing is much worse.
The value will be nil in my lifetime. There is little charm in a fresh provenance.
"Got a flaming heart, can't get my fill"
I don't necessarily agree with your second sentence. I rank the Pogue provenance at or near the top, and it's still relatively fresh.
My question is ?
Investor or collector
Question, Do we know with 100% certainty that our hosts are labeling his name on coins that D.L. did not own ? Or are people just speculating ?
I do not think any one is claiming he has never owned the coins. Rather that they are coins that have been upgraded in his sets therefore they should have been reholdered into a standard holder.
Unless I'm misunderstanding, that is not the claim or the issue. It's that there are multiple coins of the same date/mm with his name on them when the PCGS rules say there should only be 1. Presumably he owned them all, it's not like his name is going on coins he never owned. But that the name is only supposed to be on 1 coin. How many duplicates do you see with any other pedigree?
Successful transactions with: wondercoin, Tetromibi, PerryHall, PlatinumDuck, JohnMaben/Pegasus Coin & Jewelry, CoinFlip, and coinlieutenant.
I'm pretty sure he owned the coins if he submitted them for the label. The question is whether owning a (replaced) coin for a relatively short time makes it worthy of carrying a provenance, or whether labeling so many common, unremarkable coins actually cheapens the provenance.
O.K. Thank you for clearing that up ironman163 and CoinPhysicist.
And CoinJunkie.
Who?
--Severian the Lame
Hanson is #1. Everyone else is #2 or higher.
He is in every registry... could the dupes be parts of other sets and technically give him the label?
BST: KindaNewish (3/21/21), WQuarterFreddie (3/30/21), Meltdown (4/6/21), DBSTrader2 (5/5/21) AKA- unclemonkey on Blow Out
Wait...what?
I don’t think most people can really comprehend the magnitude of this certified collection. What you see today (or at any given time) is about 400-500 “branded” coins for sale. Most I have seen at one time is about 600. What you (we) don’t see are the coins that are sold from the collection without his name on them. You may have some in your personal collection and not know it.
The last branding event I am aware took place in the fall of 2019. In the event approx. 6000 coins were removed from the plastic and placed in holders with his new silver/grayish label. Even some of his coins in his blue labels and the Barber labels were cracked out and placed in the new labels. I am aware of only three branding events, the first Barber label, the second Blue label and the third new label. I don’t think any branding has occurred since Oct. 2019. I estimate as of today, he has 15,000+ coins in the collection and i would place a wager that 50% of them do not have the Hansen brand.
One last comment, some of the comments pertaining registry rules are really puzzling. PCGS makes money on putting people names on the label and it is not free. Anyone can do it at any time by just filling in the box on the submit form and adding the fee. This is completely independent of the registry rules. I see labels with names that I have never seen in the registry. Also, there is a difference in a label design vs pedigree. In many cases, Mr. Hansen keeps the pedigree of the coin on the label. As example, there are Bass, Pogue, Eliasberg, etc. coins that are now in Hansen holders. That does not necessarily mean the pedigree is lost. Sometimes for not so famous pedigrees, he does drop. Here is an example of one that Mr. Hansen retained the pedigree. There is something about the name Lily Nicole Collection that I find simply cool.
I think is original question was asking where the provenance rank. As someone said and I agree for am active set it does not rank high and adds little value. I am certain Mr. Hansen is not branding his coins to add value. Also, his collection at a point that 80% of the collection is condition census and not get upgrade anymore. What I am saying, it going harder for him to upgrade and overtime the coins available may decrease. This could change if he decides to sale his 80% complete second set.
My 20th Century Gold Major Design Type Set ---started : 11/17/1997 ---- completed : 1/21/2004
This is a different era. The mass media has become a lot more fractured than it used to be. If any collection (Hansen or otherwise) is profiled in what is left of the mass media, it's very probable that the vast majority of the public won't even know about. Whatever the number or proportion now, it's going to be fewer than when Eliasberg was collecting. It will be even fewer in what used to be well known weekly or monthly periodicals whose circulation is either declining or collapsing even as their audience is lopsidedly tilted toward the older demographic.
I don't watch the largest news networks and don't read traditional media. I do read the business news on CNBC.com and they very occasionally profile collectibles and art, but even as a collector, I can't even remember any of it. (I remember what I read on coin forums or coin websites.) It's going to be even less noticeable to the non-collector.
Not much different for books and other exposure, for the non-collector. It's easier than ever to be a collector. It's also arguably less visible than anytime during modern collecting if you aren't one. I see coin related internet banner adds all the time, because I am a collector. I doubt non-collectors see much of anything and it certainly isn't anywhere near as visible in the broader culture versus 1975 when I started collecting.