Dear Coin Enthusiasts all over the World,

At some point in early October 2020, an American colleague called me. He asked for my opinion regarding the provenance of the Brutus aureus offered by Roma. I have to admit that I hadn’t looked into it yet. So I did, and I was deeply impressed. A provenance reaching far back into the 19th century – specific names and dates. What could be wrong with such a detailed ownership history?

Apparently, I was naive. US authorities claim that the entire provenance is falsified. Allegedly, money was paid to obtain the necessary documentation. Although the coin dealer charged with this crime has not been sentenced yet and obviously has to be considered innocent until proven guilty, I am personally shocked by these developments. I am afraid that an uninformed public might assume such behaviour to be commonplace in the coin trade. I am afraid that, once again, an entire industry will be met with universal suspicion because of an isolated case. Therefore, it’s important to speak it out: if this actually did happen, it is an exception. Anyone who intentionally falsifies a provenance commits fraud against the customer – be it a coin dealer or a collector. And the large majority of coin dealers neither defraud customers nor deliberately fail to comply with existing regulations.

We all know that there are good reasons why some collectors do not want their name to be given at the sale of their collection. In such a case, an auction house will simply omit the name or invent a pseudonym. The tradition started with the “distinguished gentleman”, who repeatedly appeared with this or similar names on cover pages of British auction catalogues in the 19th century. Be it “Kunstfreund” or “ESR”, there was always a real person behind the collection. The expert of the Manhattan District Attorney claims that “from an old Swiss collection” is coded language in the coin trade for a piece of dubious provenance – I, however, had never heard of this code before. I would expect this piece to actually come from an old Swiss collection…