Photo guide
One photograph is enough to ask. Up to three helps. What matters is that the marks are readable — a record is found from a serial, a hallmark, a signature, a name. Here is where they hide.
We go and find it.
Near a window. Flash hides marks in glare. Silver and glass photograph best on a dark ground; most other things on a plain, pale one.
One photograph of the entire object, square on. Then the marks, as close as your phone will focus. Fill the frame with them.
Serials, hallmarks, labels, inscriptions, stamps on the back. If it is written on the object, we read it — so make it readable.
By kind of object
The serial and reference are on the caseback or inside it. Take the strap off if it hides the lugs. Papers and the box count as documents.
Marks live on the clasp, the shank or the pin. A coin or a ruler beside it gives scale. Stones photograph better in daylight than under a lamp.
Lay it flat and light it from the side so the relief shows. A graded coin is photographed in its slab with the label readable. Don't clean it first — cleaning takes off value and record together.
A named rim is the thread that finds a person — photograph the whole rim in two or three turns. Keep a group mounted as it is; the order is evidence. Citations, the case and the box of issue attach free as documents.
Silver likes a dark ground. Get the full mark set in one frame, straight on — the date letter is the one that matters most.
Turn it over. The factory mark, pattern number and any impressed marks are on the base. Chips and repairs go in too — a record is better for them.
The back of the frame usually carries more than the front: dealer labels, exhibition stamps, an old inventory number. Take the glass off if you safely can.
The title page and the printer's line date it. Bookplates, inscriptions and a previous owner's name are the story — photograph every one. Manuscripts the same way: first leaf, last leaf, any hand that isn't the scribe's.
A studio stamp or a pencilled caption on the back places it. Keep it flat and out of glare.
The lot code and the fill level are what a record checks against. Original case and wooden box lids count as documents.
The date code is inside — in a pocket, on a leather tab, under the lining. Dust bag, receipt and care booklet attach free as documents. Shoes, watches straps and small leather goods are photographed the same way.
The chassis and engine numbers are the object here. The logbook, service history and old registration are the record — photograph them page by page.
A graded card is photographed in its slab, label readable. For a signed item, the signature straight on, plus whatever came with it.
Makers stamp the underside of a drawer or the back rail. On a rug, the back tells more than the front: the knots and the selvedge.
The label inside a violin or the serial on a brass instrument is the thread. A case with an old address label is a document.
Thumbnails are placeholders for our own photography
Not every kind is routed yet. Where we don't hold the registers for yours, the page says so and asks for an address — we write once, when they are in. We don't take money for a search we can't run.
Receipts, old insurance schedules, letters, a previous valuation, the box, the guarantee card, a photograph of the person who owned it. Up to ten documents per object, at no charge. A document is evidence; you pay for the verdict, not the evidence.
Free to ask, no account. The report, if you want it, is CAD 35.
Every source named. Every gap admitted. One report, within 24 hours.
People don't need this when they buy. They need it when they claim, consign or divide — and by then it's too late to make it.
Terms of sale · Refund policy · Privacy policy · Sold by Stripe. Reports by Veradis Intelligence INC.
