"You're not a hater, are you?" as quoted from a member of Coin Talk. First of all, I have no idea what you asked." Second, I am not a "card carrying "hater". If i am asked if I hate those that crashed civilian aircraft into a civilian building with woman, children, and babies as well as non-combatant men and women. Maybe one day the people of the world will realize that we stand with them during all of our time of grief and sorry and our church spends millions to help those that are in need. Whoops! Off topic.
As I have said in many threads, "People are only honest if they have to be. I guess that my many years of auditing records of a state, I have come to be jaundiced (when you get hepatitis, your body turns yellow, which is called Jaundiced) when I have seen as much dishonesty in the world today. I would have to get another firm to grade the coin as well.
I think it comes down to what you want in your collection. There are enough people who find these interesting and trust the provenance to be OK with it...that's why the market has settled on a price higher than a "normal" coin (be it a krugerrand, ASE, or whatever else was in the 9/11 vaults). I have absolutely no problem with the provenance of these coins and would have no issue owning one. What prevents me from owning one is the price...I personally don't value the "history" of the piece enough to pay the market price for one. If you don't trust the provenance, that's totally fine. We all have to decide what fits in our collections and what doesn't. But, the general consensus in this hobby is authentication by PCGS or NGC is the industry standard. The chain of custody you desire isn't really possible in this industry because coins have no unique identifiers. They don't have serial numbers or anything like that. If this is the type of proof you need, then clearly some aspects of this hobby aren't for you...and that's totally fine. The beauty of it is we get to collect what we like.
I put a bid in on a 10th ounce 50th anniversary gold maple Leaf at $50 over spot because it had a wtc label. It sold for 3x my over spot price. They make a cool addition to anyone's collection, but not crazy money.
As long as it’s reasonable, and don’t get me starters on Libertads 2.5 over spot or more, not very realistic in my book.