Who are these people?

[David Soknacki]

Recently I purchased two coins from Roma’s auction 25. Lot 23 was catalogued as from the “Paulo Leitão” collection, and lot 137 from the “F Cruse” collection. Roma says that they will not disclose any further information.

If anyone can provide any background on “Paulo Leitão” or “F Cruse,” I’d appreciate it. 

Below is a photo of one of my purchases, formerly in the collection of the mysterious F Cruse.

… thanks for listening, and any help you might be able to provide.

D

Sicily, Syracuse Æ 28mm. Time of Timoleon and the Third Democracy, circa 339/8-334 BC. ΖΕΥΣ ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΙΟΣ, laureate head of Zeus to left / ΣΥΡΑΚΟΣΙΩΝ, free horse prancing to left. 20.18g, 28mm, 5h.

[CPK]

I don't know anything about those collections, but wow! That is a beautiful coin!

[Phil Davis]

Paulo is Portuguese, a serious high-end collector and sometimes dealer. No idea about the other guy (not even if s/he is a "guy.")

[Kali]

Beautiful coin.

I have noticed that too. Some coins have these "from the collection of" and I guess I am suppose to be impressed. Half the time doing a search results in nothing showing up or it was from an old dealer I am not familiar with.

I still leave it on my own labels though, it might be important for future collectors.

[CPK]

Just now, Kali said:

Beautiful coin.

I have noticed that too. Some coins have these "from the collection of" and I guess I am suppose to be impressed. Half the time doing a search results in nothing showing up or it was from an old dealer I am not familiar with.

I still leave it on my own labels though, it might be important for future collectors.

I don't understand really why the auction houses include that information if they aren't willing to explain. What is the point? I admit it does sound better to say the coin is from such-and-such collection, but it's ultimately meaningless unless further information is provided.

Awhile back I purchased some coins from CNG which are from the "Kermit C. Smyth collection". I asked the auction house if they could tell me anything about him or his collection but never got a reply. I'm still wondering.

[Sol_Invictus]

3 hours ago, CPK said:

I don't understand really why the auction houses include that information if they aren't willing to explain. What is the point? I admit it does sound better to say the coin is from such-and-such collection, but it's ultimately meaningless unless further information is provided.

Perhaps there is still some information that you can glean from such a vague provenance in that you can see the other coins that are also stated to be from the same collection.  Maybe this can tell you some things? For example, if you can tell that the collection probably would have taken a long time to build (e.g., the collection contains every rare sub-variant for some type of coin, and these only show up every few decades, and rarely together), then maybe your prior probability for the date that any particular coin in the collection was acquired by the seller can be pushed somewhat back in time compared to an identical coin with no provenance stated at all.  You still wouldn't be able to tell with any specificity how far back the provenance extends for any coin in the collection (any one of them could have been obtained yesterday), but perhaps it's still a little hint that the coins may have been in a collection for a while?