Pedigree & Hoard / Coins & Currency

Interesting perspective NB. I presume by 'pedigree collecting' you mean that you particularly seek out specific examples from a known source?

This is a bit different from in Britain where pedigree (we call it provenance here) is not a 'new' concept since I and many other collectors I know try to find out where a coin came from and which collections it belonged to previously. Though I think here it's considered (at least by some) as a 'bonus' rather than an aim to find one coin from such-and-such a collection or a specific hoard.

I suspect it is a bit easier here because few coins are slabbed and traditionally collectors have used 'tickets' (small paper discs where you can write a record of the coin, its type, where it was bought etc). Unlike in the US where the slab is the thing, here it's sometimes possible to obtain a coin with tickets stretching back many collections and years.

Example of a coin ticket (though not one of mine!):



I spend quite a lot of time seeking out auction catalogues and dealer sales catalogues to help my research. Sadly in the earlier days (before the 1960s) it was an expensive process to print pictures and so only the rarest or most interesting coins were illustrated.

But in one case I managed to trace back one coin I had bought to an article in the British Numismatic Journal of 1918 and thence to a number of later collections.

It's an exciting time for me when I manage to find an earlier photograph of a coin I own in an article or sales catalogue and I can add to what I know about the history of the coin!

Not all of my coins are 'provenanced' in that some cannot be traced and others were recent finds. However I record all information I can and maybe one day someone will be as pleased to find a coin with one of my tickets as I am when I receive someone else's.

Very nice. I look forward to reading more of your articles.