For me the higher the grade of pre-war card the more important the provenance is. Ask any collector that has been collecting cards for 25-30 yrs and they will tell you that there is no way this many "minty" looking cards were around back in the day. Of course the argument about how the prices have brought them out comes up, and this and that, and....more excuses and theories. If your provenance leads you to "rawoysterman" on ebay, or Ohio in general, you might want to run the other way
. For me, provenance on mid grade cards isn't all that important. Provenance on memorabilia and autographs is extremely important....all imho....regards