Scan A Photo, Know the Provenance

I have indeed, when they were first beta testing the service, and I'm eager to run more through. I had 10 coins submitted, each with minimal pedigrees, and it managed to find the pedigree for two of them. It tracked a Nero aureus back to 1982 and this Sextus Pompey denarius to 1977:



I'm unclear as to what the cost will be if an old pedigree is already known, but I'll be trying it further on coins which look like they should have a pedigree but don't.

 

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Bingo. The key will be recognizing which coins probably have been around a while and submitting those.

 

Oh well, too late. Did not know CNG used this service. Does it work well?

 

Very well. It's a technology that has been possible in some degree for a little while now. The big change with this one is that the guy actually developed a business model that looks like it could be successful.

 

I signed up and submitted one coin for which some prior sales seem likely. Fingers crossed for a hit... other than for the auction in which it was purchased

 

Their webpage is experiencing a handful of errors as I'm trying to upload coins... so far I've managed to get 13 uploaded but now it's being difficult for me (on Chrome + Windows 10 x64).

Edit: It looks like it was caused by images > 2MB. Shrinking them down works!

 

Right on!

 

*Mat credit* ...

=> yah, just thought I'd log-in and make sure Mat knows that I'm not snubbing his thread



Ummm, this thingy is far too high-tech for me (I hope you guys love using this thing) ... is it an app on your phones?

 

Despite the claims of anti-collecting types, most of the ancient coins on the market these days have been in the hands of collectors for decades if not generations. I regularly find prior sales of coins I've recently purchased on sites such as coinarchives.com and acsearch.info. i have no doubt that many of these coins have provenances going back even further though for one reason or another, documentation is lacking. What is the value of provenance? The day is coming, sooner or later but inevitably, when a documented pre-1970 provenance (per UNESCO convention) will be required to legally transfer ownership of ancient coins and other antiquities.

 

i'm just going to lurk on this one...

 

I received some clarification about the pricing this morning.

I had misunderstood and thought the price (25 credits for post-1970, 50 for pre-1971) was per hit. It is not. There is no limit to the number of hits; the price is based on the oldest pedigree found.

Send them any provenance information you already have for each coin. Even though they don't charge per hit, it could make a difference in pricing. For instance, if you have one pedigree data point from 1950 and they uncover one additional pedigree from 1975, you would pay 25 credits, not 50 credits.

As of now, when you upload a coin you merely upload the picture without any additional information. I suggested that they include a brief form on their website allowing the submitter to fill in known provenance and the auction or catalog from which the submitter purchased the coin. Right now you have to do that after the fact by email.

Edited to add:

Reading their pricing structure again, it also isn't clear whether the 5 credit handling fee is rolled in to the 25/50 if any provenance is found, or whether the price is 25/50 plus 5.

 

Thanks for the update, TIF. I'm guessing it's rolled in if any provenance is found. I hope they incorporate the established provenance field into their form like you suggested. I can't remember if you said if you actually submitted any coins for their search already? I might do one now out of curiosity.

 

Another reply from Ex-Nvmis: they are working on a provenance form to include with the submission.

@zumbly: yes, I submitted my Agathokles tetradrachm. It's of high enough value to be worth it and I currently have no provenance information for it.

 

I hope they score a hit (or three) for you!

 

Well bummer. Ex-Numis was unable to find any lost provenance for my Agathokles tetradrachm. I'm going to submit a few more.

 

did that strike-out still cost you cash?

 

The search, whether fruitful or not, costs 5 "credits" (1 credit = 1 CHF). They have an introductory offer right now of 25 free credits so no, I don't have to pay anything.

The message also said they'd continue to look, that their software continues to learn and improve, and that their database grows daily.

 

good luck, my friend

 

I have heard back and unfortunately they did not find any lost provenance for either of the coins I submitted. I will probably try again soon though.

 

I have a tiny number of coins that I may consider submitting at some point as a test but as others have mentioned, for most of my coins it doesn't make sense to spend up to ~$50 to find provenance, plus I enjoy the hunt and building my own auction catalog library. I use the following sites when hunting:

ACsearch
DeaMoneta archives(10 euros a year)
CNG archives - use Google to search for better results using a query like "site:cngcoins.com blah"
CNG Printed Archives(http://issuu.com/cngcoins/) -again, Google site search against either all of issuu.com (other dealers publish on it) or just against CNG Coins works well as Google seems to do a good job of OCRing CNGs scans so you can search their text

I also have a small but growing physical library of catalogs of the best RR sales that is useful and most of the catalogs were free (except for shipping) from dealers who were trying to clear out clutter.

Here is a coin that I haven't shared yet because I just won it in a European auction and don't have it in hand yet, but I was able to find unlisted provenance for back to 1991 by searching the CNG archives:


Roman Republic AR Serrate Denarius(3.72g, 19mm). C. Naevius Balbus, moneyer, 79 BC, Rome mint. Diademed head of Venus right; behind, S•C / Victory in triga right; above, CCV; in exergue, C•NAE•BALB. Crawford 382/1b; Babelon Naevia 6
Ex. CNA XIV lot 693, March 20, 1991