Tracing a provenance
Provenance is the modern history of a coin: the hands, the sales and the collections it passed through before reaching you. It is now a criterion as important as condition.
Why it matters
A documented provenance answers two questions at once. It supports authenticity, since a coin published in an old catalogue has already been seen by specialists. And it establishes that the object circulates lawfully, which the regulations on cultural property make indispensable.
A coin appearing in a sale of the nineteen-seventies is worth markedly more than the same specimen with no known history.
Where to look
Auction catalogues, largely digitised, are the first source. Then come public collections, many of which have put their holdings online with photographs, and hoard publications, which sometimes allow a specimen to be attached to a dated group.
The search works on the type-and-specimen pair: you compare weight, diameter, and above all the exact position of surface marks, which are a coin’s true fingerprint.
Writing down what you find
On every record we note what is established, and only that. When a provenance is unknown to us, we write that rather than hint at a history. It is less flattering, and it is the only way to be believed when we state the rest.