(Video) Seeking Provenance - Does your coin have hidden value and history? Find out!

Hey everyone,

Here's a quickie on how to begin searching for the provenance of your coins.
I took up an interest in this subject some weeks ago and now want to share what I've learned with all of you. I know there are some seasoned veterans in here so let me know if I left something out!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

This is VERY WEL DONE. Amazing. I love your videos,

 

well done sir

 

Nice video! I'm not into ancient coins but your videos make me a bit more interested in them!

 

I was doing exactly this today. Some tips:

• Sixbid archives is less complete, but includes some auction houses that ACsearch does not
• Use boolean operators. Differs a bit between ACsearch and SixBid, but usually, a space is an AND. Wildcards, usually denoted with an *, allow for broader searches. In SixBid, I usually have searches like "Rom* (532 || 332) -republic. This translates to 1) all phrases starting with Rom, e.g. Roman, Romans, etc., 2) a phrase that is either 532 or 332 (e.g. catalogue numbers) and 3) NOT republic. In SixBid, there is a help page explaning this a bit further
• Include weight! Allow a margin of uncertainty (e.g. (0.75 || 0.76 || 0.77) if your coin weighs 0.76 grams. This have helped me a couple of times.

 

Nicely made video, a few additions on provenance hunting:

• ACSearch does offer an image search which I've found useful in finding both die matches and coin matches (in contrast to Ex-Nummis where several dozen searches later I have nothing to show for it)
• the other major source to explore are large online databases, auction catalogs, journal articles and reference plates, much like browsing in ACSearch except in paper or pdfs, surprising amounts of information now available electronically make this much easier than even a few years ago.
• the tags that come with your coins - these are sometimes mysterious and indecipherable but even the most cryptic can sometimes give you clues about the coin and previous owners e.g. older reference numbers can be an indication of when the tag was written.

I had a nice surprise finding an Alexander III drachm as a wildwinds reference coin. This gave my undocumented Ebay purchase an extra 10 years of provenance and a listing in a well used reference.

Another example: here. The story of one coin from Ekkarra that turned out to be a plate coin in a publication that I was reading to learn more about the coin.

Thanks for your efforts to share experience and expertise with others.

 

This thread has made me wonder: is there are thread dedicated to finding provenances? I wonder about the methods others use.

 

An example: I bought a Roman Republican denarius a few months ago that came with an old Spink tag. It had a Sydenham number on it, but no Crawford number. Which indicated to me that the tag was written no later than 1974, when Crawford was published. (I could also tell that the tag was definitely written before 2000, because it had Spink's pre-2000 address on it.)

 

Provenances from the digital age are somewhat easier given the amount of online archiving, but even these are reliant on someone maintaining the site. If it shuts down, all can be lost.

There's only one effective way to research provenances and that is to acquire as many auction catalogues as you can get your hands on, the old and the more recent and then do an awful lot of reading, compiling a database of those coins in areas in which you have an interest. That includes coins you don't yet have, but intend to purchase in the future. By building said database, you are then better prepared to put a coin of interest in perspective relative to its peers when deciding how much to spend, or indeed if it is worth spending money on in the first place. There's no quickfire solution to this, just perseverance.

 

I've never really got around to trying sixbid, but will certainly do now.
Using boolean operators is such good advice, I actually did this in the video but failed to mention it at all If I ever make a follow-up video it'll take center stage.

Huge thanks for your reply!

I have just begun my journey in the rabbit hole of pre-2000 auction PDF's. There are
some auction houses that keep great records but for some reason are not included in ACSearch.

I've no luck with Ex-Nummis either, I'm on my 9th submission right now. They might just be oriented more towards higher-tier coins (above 1000 CHF).

I love stories like yours and the one you linked. It gives a whole new dimension to the story of your coin, and to have rediscovered it yourself makes it even more special IMO.

 

Here's a tip I have for provenance searchers: trust but verify. If you decide to pay a premium for provenance, try to verify it. Even if you don't, try to verify that provenance if you buy a coin that lists one because sometimes sellers do get it wrong. Here's an example of one I recently purchased:

Roman Republic AR Denarius(3.81g), Quintus Pomponius Musa, moneyer, 56 B.C., Rome mint. Laureate head of Apollo right; behind, star. Border of dots. / Urania, muse of Astronomy left, holding rod in right hand and pointing to globe resting on tripod; on right, Q POMPONI downwards; on left, MVSA downwards. Border of dots. Crawford 410/8; Sydenham 823

I purchased this coin in a recent Harlan J Berk buy or bid sale. No provenance listed but the price was right. Some research revealed sales from Gorny & Mosch and Münzen & Medaillen GmbH that pushed the provenance back to 2002. That 2002 sale mentioned "Aus Auktion Numismatik Lanz, München 18 (1989), 253", which of course is not online, so I consulted my Lanz catalogs and quickly realized it wasn't in either of the catalogs of theirs I had from 1989, nor was sale 18 held in 1989. Further research revealed that the other 1989 sales I was missing did not have any ancients. Unfortunately I did not have catalog 18, but some further digging found that lot 253 was a plausible lot number for my coin based on other provenances I found listed online to that sale. With this info I started asking around and found a friend who had a copy of Lanz 18 and asked him to take a look at lot 253. Lo and behold, there was my coin, so it had an even older provenance than suggested by that 2002 sale. I am still hoping to find something older, but I consider 1980 pretty good.