Provenence/Pedigree Research Help........Early Gold
Proofmorgan
Posts: 766 ✭✭✭✭✭
Hi All,
Background:
I'm in the process of putting together an Early Half Eagle set, consisting of very original MS examples. Those two traits typically don't live in the same sentence with regards to early gold. I've only seen this combination at large in many of the Pogue examples. I am trying to accomplish the same quality for my set at just a grade or two below for most of my examples. Attaining some of the more "affordable" Pogue coins as I go is not out of the question. All 5 of my coins are right just below the Pogue coins in the condition census listing. My examples grading 63 and up (1805 in 55 Gold CAC being the exception).
Research:
I've noticed the Pogue coins come with extensive Provenance/Pedigree Information. I'm trying to do the best I can do do the same. I've purchased many many catalogs back to the 40s and studied the plates and descriptions. In my favor is that my coins have the original surfaces and toning. This plays in my favor to identify them. They all have their original color/dirt/skin. That said, I've been largely unsuccessful thus far.
I'll summarize some of my progress below:
1805 and 1806: Purchased both from Heritage. One in 2010 and One in 2017. A numismatist I spoke to (not Mark), will not provide any prior history of ownership for me to go on. I haven't found any matching plates or descriptions in my old catalogs.
1804: Traced back to 2003 Goldberg's Benson III auction. I've reached out to Goldberg and they are looking to see if they can assist. No matching plates or descriptions in my old catalogs. It was not stated as a "Benson" coin in the auction as these were raw up until the auction. If Goldberg can confirm it is Benson, that would end that search....unless they had notes on the coin from Benson (doubtful).
1807: I purchased from David Lawrence in 2019. I've made several productive calls and traced the following: Kevin Lipton 2011; John Albanese (CAC) 2011; Blanchard 2011; Private Collector 2011; David Lawrence 2019.
David Lawrence, The Private Collector (via DL), Blanchard, John Albanese, and Kevin Lipton all took my calls and were excellent to deal with. The trail went cold with Kevin Lipton, who does not keep records back to 2011 and this coin is not at a rarity level to stick in his memory.
My question is where do I go from here? Any tips or insights for those of you who've had success?
Did Pogue buy coins that came with clues as to the lineage, were well known, or had people/resources to track this information down, or was Stack's a big part of the research pre-auction?
There’s also the chance that these examples may have lived in private collections only to surface in the last 20 or so years to be graded....but all of my examples?
Comments
Not an easy task. I'll put some brainpower to it when I finish up some work here. Good luck.
J
siliconvalleycoins.com
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End Systemic Elitism - It Takes All of Us
ANA LM, LSCC, EAC, FUN
Have you spent much time checking earlier auction plates at the Newman Portal?
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Your coins look great in the photos, I suspect they are even better in hand!
RE: 1805 and 1806: Purchased both from Heritage. One in 2010 and One in 2018. A numismatist I spoke to (not Mark), will not provide any prior history of ownership for me to go on. I haven't found any matching plates or descriptions in my old catalogs.
I suspect it will be difficult to establish a provenance on coins like your 1805 $5 in AU55, the population around that grade is too large. Focus on your most meaningful pieces.
My Batphone just rang. I wrote the Pogue catalogues and did that research -- day in, day out, night in, night out, for several years.
The better the coin, the easier it is to trace a pedigree. The best coins now were the best coins when they were discovered, so they tend to leave a paper trail -- publication in a secondary reference, illustration in a standard text, an auction appearance, a line item on the inventory of a famous collection. I tracked down all of that. It was a painstaking process, but it was worth it.
The Pogue coins often came from famous collections. Coins from multigenerational collections (Garrett, Clapp-Eliasberg, Norweb, Childs, etc.) make life easy, because you generally know when they entered the collection and can make some pretty easy guesses on where to look before that.
Those pieces that came from more modern collections tended to come from auction, and there are some good listings of auction appearances -- Breen's monographs, Breen's encyclopedia, QDB's books, Dannreuther's books, census listings and articles, census listings in well done auction catalogue descriptions, etc. Rarely was something unpublished and previously unknown.
Failing those sorts of research, I spent a LOT of time looking through every damn auction catalogue where I thought there was a chance of finding Pogue quality coins. (Hint: don't forget the Apostrophe sales). A step removed from Pogue quality, the job gets much tougher. Two or three steps lower, and you might be facing a nearly impossible task unless you get lucky.
The Pogue inventory listed some pedigrees, but most were incomplete and several were wrong.
There is nothing more gratifying than uniting a coin with its proper provenance. I'm of the belief that there is nothing you can do that adds more value to a coin either.
Betts medals, colonial coins, US Mint medals, foreign coins found in early America, and other numismatic Americana
The 1806 has the look of James A Stack
They may have come from the 200 year old safe.
Sales to check aside from the big usual suspects:
Cleney
Mougey
Woodin
Col Green Plates
Bass
James Stack
DiBello
Robison
Wolfson
Fairchild from Goldberg
LaRiviere
Flanagan
Atwater
FCC Boyd Worlds Greatest Collection
Latin American Collection
Well, I can say that the 1806 is not any of the three pointed 6 specimens in the Stack sales of 1994 and 95.
Ed. S.
(EJS)
Prior thread regarding the 1804 $5 from the Benson sale:
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1057497/benson-pedigree-help
Clearly your 1804 Breen-1A (Small 8 over Large 8) MS-63 is lot 1998 in this sale.
http://images.goldbergauctions.com/php/chap_auc.php?site=1&lang=1&sale=17&chapter=72&page=1
As you noted, it's not from the Benson collection, and the description does not list a provenance.
As others have mentioned, usually a coin has to be extremely rare or one of the top few for the date, for the provenance to be listed in an auction description. In these modern times, with good archived auction photos a coin can be traced in the future. But the past provenance of coins not in these very top categories may be lost in time.
If Goldberg Auctions has records of the consignors for each lot, and are willing to disclose it [with permission of the consignors], you might be able to get one past link in the provenance. But likely no further than that.
It might be fun to construct a roster of the top 10 Breen-1A specimens, using online auction photos. I do that sort of thing for half dime die varieties. I generally don't try to go back further than 2010, because the photo quality declines.
Benson I don't recall having owned any coin of this caliber and might have just been a separate consignment in that sale. Benson had a lot of $50-500 PCGS Pedigreed coins that swarmed eBay, Teletrade, and David Lawrence auctions after the sale for a decade.
Thank you all for your comments thus far, especially pistareen for the first hand account and Brian for the actual books.
So far I’ve checked every auction PCGS lists for the dates and grades in “auction prices realized”. I’ve purchased and viewed each catalog.
I’ve checked almost all of Brian’s list and also the vast majority of listings from the Akers Half Eagle Auction listings.
I’m still hoping for just a crumb to get me somewhere. I did think the odds were a little better since the coins are all original and have distinguishing features. Also, they are in the top 10 census without being dipped to achieve those grades.
A little more detail on what I have to work with:
1805: Though AU on the holder, definitely a current MS coin. Has a reverse cud that would help to identify it in any plates. Also flashy orange deep color.
1806: This was once 62 CAC in the Hutchinson Collection. I upgrade myself as it seemed undergraded. If you read the 2017 auction description, Heritage did extensive research on this piece and came up empty. There are less than 10 examples known of this variety (BD-3)and this is very likely the finest. The collection had 2 and Bass has 3. Provenance is provided for all Bass examples. His Dibello UNC piece going back to 1907 Chapman and a couple of XF examples from the Beck and Boys Town Collections. The AU Norweb coin is also identified. The Hutchinson collection seemingly dropped likely the two finest examples from thin air. (Unfortunately someone dipped the Hutchinson AU58 example into a 62 holder, losing CAC and destroying the coin)
1807: Violet toning on a PL reverse. Some contact on the obverse may also be helpful to identify it.
1804: Rich multicolor toning and the adjustment marks on the reverse feathers are a great indicator.
Try the PCGS Auction Archives. They're pretty good after 2004 or so (and sometimes way far back), though the older pictures, like everyone else's, sucked.
I like Andy's idea about the NNP. Going back, you're going to get more and more black-and-whites. But a lot of great sales had great color plates of the highlights.
Which sale?. They were both marvelous.
NNP has a TON of major auction catalogues. I get the feeling some thorough research might find a couple of yours there.
"It's like God, Family, Country, except Sticker, Plastic, Coin."
I'm not sure of your languaging.
If "are willing to disclose that" means the consent of various consignors, that's on target.
If it refers to the Goldbergs, disclosure would be a violation of the confidentiality of a client. Every class auction house protects their clients.
First of all, let me congratulate you on an excellent collection!
Second, nice coins do come out of nowhere without pedigrees. When I was at ANACS (1978-1984) we received in a lovely Turban Head $5 (can't remember the date) that came in with an old piece of heavy paper that the submittor said it had been wrapped in. Apparently some great-great-ancestor had visited America in the year it was struck, taken it back to England with him and given it to a son or nephew as a Christmas present. On the paper was written (I assume with a quill pen) "To (the recipient's first name), An American Guinea. Christmas (the year on the coin)." Might have gone back into some family members safety deposit box.
Unfortunately it seems those little clues and pieces of history are often lost or cast aside along the way, being one more piece for a dealer to keep track of OR someone keeps it along the way. The 1805 I sold to upgrade to mine was in 55 CAC and came with an original envelope it was housed in for many years (via Doug Winter). It has appeared in two subsequent auctions since without the envelope.