[travrosty]

Provenance stories just cloud better judgment, all provenance stories do is push a questionable or bogus autograph over the edge to the good side. if it was dead on, no need for provenance, it only helps the so-so autographs gain legs when they shouldn't.

These companies are afraid to give 'no opinions' , or 'unable to authenticate' is what the problem is.

Halper had Ruth hair with provenance3 signed on an envelope by Ruth himself. That provenance really helped, didn't it? It probably pushed it over the edge from "who the heck can know for sure it's ruth hair', to 'well it must be good, it has ruth provenance.'

Provenance is only for the weak autographs. Only one million percent lock solid verifiable provenance helps, and that is almost zero percent of the provenance we see in these auction listings, and in those miniscule cases, the autograph stands up for itself anyway.

I would rather have a dead-on autograph with no provenance, than a shaky looking autograph with good provenance, because the provenance story will fall through way before the dead-on autograph will. Because when it comes down to it, you have to collect autographs, not stories or certs.