What Does Belzberg Mean?

Denco 7: I like how you are thinking. I am enjoying every ones take on
pedigree/provenance.I purchased coins out of the Norweb and Belzberg
sales and was very happy to do so. IMO top pop coins with solid
pedigrees bring very solid prices when the time comes to sell.

This is a thought-provoking discussion and thanks for the variety of perspectives. @macdon, since you didn't know what Belzberg meant, I'm curious whether you purchased these coins or perhaps inherited them? Obviously the Belzberg attribution had no significance to you prior to starting this thread.

Here's part of what wikipedia says regarding "provenance":



To me, the value of provenance is a spectrum from high to low. "Value" can be strictly monetary, or mostly knowledge. In archaeology, provenance (and its related term "provenience") is critically important. An artifact is virtually meaningless without the context of discovery. In art, provenance primarily proves that it's genuine, who painted it and when, and demonstrates whether it had ever been looted or stolen. For a coin though, what value does provenance really give us? Once proven genuine, we know pretty much everything we need to know. Sure, there are questions about how certain coins ever got out of the mint, but what else is there? Yes, certain one of a kind coins have tremendous allure because of who owned them, but for every one of those there are hundreds of relatively average coins only distinguished by having Pittman or Belzberg etc as previous owners. Those coins may have also traded hands numerous times after being designated, so where is the value in a single attribution? I like the comparison to a Jimi Hendrix guitar. Or perhaps let's say a set of golf clubs - Arnold Palmer owned this set of clubs, played the Master with them in 19xx - valuable! This other set of golf clubs was owned by Warren Buffet - more or less valuable? There's nothing particularly unique about the fact that a phenomenally wealthy person previously owned something relatively common. That person didn't do anything with that specific object that was inherently part of their "fame". I feel the same about coins.

Related to the question/point others have raised, how do TPGs (or any collector, for that matter) determine what provenance is meaningful? My most valuable George VI coins came directly from my grandfather, and have clear provenance to 1949. If the value is in the clear line of ownership and authenticity, how do I get a TPG to recognize that? It's a bit of a conundrum, isn't it?