Provenance. A pedigree; the record of previous ownership of an artifact or numismatic item. A provenance is important only for the most valuable or rarest items and is highly regarded when an appraisal is made on the item. A search of auction catalogs, sales literature, trade publications and such is required to compile such a pedigree or provenance. When this information is found the item is said to be traceable.

Private treaty sales without publication of such transactions often provide stumbling blocks to compiling such prior list of owners, but research is conducted to learn who owned it, when each purchase or transaction was made, and how much was paid at each sale, a price study. When histories of rare items are written, provenance often plays an important role, as in the case of the book on the 14 known 1804 U.S. silver dollars by Eric P. Newman and Kenneth Bressett. The documented knowledge that a famous collector once owned an item adds greatly to its charm (and often its auction price!).

Note: this term is spelled correctly above and is not the “provenience” – which also means origin – that will appear on computer spellcheckers.

Reference:

NC7 {1962} Newman and Bressett.