How Important Is Provenance To You?

[Rob D.]

When I bought my E93 Lajoie from Josh K., he offered me an example that was graded a bit higher and was centered slightly better, but I wanted the (technically) lower-condition one because it was slabbed as being from the Nagy Collection. So when the provenance traces back to one of the hobby pioneers, it means something to me.

Following up on what Leon implied regarding provenance being able to provide assurance that cards haven't been altered, I have a beautiful T206 from the Lionel Carter collection (below) that SGC deemed trimmed. I know there were a number of T206s from his collection that also were graded that way. Of course that doesn't mean he trimmed them, and the likely scenario is he received them that way, but it serves as a caution that provenance — no matter where it leads to — isn't a 100 percent guarantee of much of anything.