veradis

Everything in that drawer outlived the person who could explain it.

You didn't inherit the object. You inherited the question — and one day an insurer, an executor or a buyer will ask it out loud. The answer was written down when the thing was new: a stamp office ledger, a factory production book, a museum’s accession register. We go and find it — and tell you how strongly it holds up, naming which register, and whether it let us in.

Start with one thing.

One photograph is enough to ask. Three tell us more.

Read it — free

Opening the registers

No card. No payment. The account is just so it’s yours on any device.

What people put in · illustrative

Watches · illustrativePocket watch, EnglishThe case has a number. The factory wrote it in a book.
Ceramics & glass · illustrativeVase, unmarked baseForm and glaze are a signature when a name is not.
Paintings & prints · illustrativePrint, plate signedThe plate carries a state. States were catalogued.
Jewellery · illustrativeBrooch, hallmarked claspMarks live on the clasp, where nobody photographs.
Silver · illustrativeSilver tankardFour marks under the base. Three registers hold the maker.
Instruments · illustrativeViolin, interior labelA label inside is a claim. Registers test the claim.
Medals & militaria · illustrativeWaterloo Medal, 1815Issued to every rank, named to each man on the rim. The rim carries a man. A man carries a record.
Vintage cars · illustrativeMascot, accession ATH4-18A collection photographed its own. That is provenance.
Wines & spirits · illustrativeBottle, house and vintageA house, a year, a cellar. All three were written down.

Illustrative. Photographs are public-domain collection images, not customer objects.

Why a collection and not a report.

Free to hold

It holds the object.

Photographs, documents and what you remember, kept together in one place. The marks are read for you and written down as read. Nothing is thrown away because it did not fit a form.

Family and friends

Bring the family in.

Invite a brother, a cousin, the aunt who was actually there. They add what they remember and see what you find. Every addition carries the name of the person who made it.

One day it moves on

It is built to go with the object.

Sold, insured or inherited, the record is designed to travel with the thing. The next person starts where you stopped rather than at the beginning.