How the register knows what it knows.
One work, one record.
Every work you enter receives a permanent accession number and a single, structured record: identification, provenance, its catalogue raisonné listing, costs, condition, documents. The figures on the record are computed from signed cost records — acquisition cost, break-even, net proceeds are derived, never typed into an editable field. A number with no trail behind it never enters the register unmarked.
Every fact carries its grade.
The Registry never records a bare fact. Each load-bearing value carries an attestation: who or what put it there, and on what basis. Documents are fingerprinted with SHA-256 at intake; where a value is backed by a document, the locating quote is stored and verified verbatim. The vocabulary is fixed — six grades, stated plainly on the record.
Asserted by a person; no external document of record.
Computed by the valuation engine from recorded inputs.
Backed by a source document; the locating quote was verified verbatim.
Extracted from a source document; not verbatim-verified.
Recorded as unbacked: no source, no assertion of record.
No attestation on record — this fact was written outside the attested path.
Valuations are sealed, not saved.
A valuation of record is signed with the Registry’s key (Ed25519), timestamped through OpenTimestamps, and anchored to a public blockchain. Once sealed, it cannot be quietly revised — a superseding valuation is a new sealed entry, and the earlier one stays on the record. Seals verify against our published key.
Built for the rooms where it gets tested.
The register exists for the moments a collection meets a counterparty: the insurer’s renewal, the private bank’s LTV question, the estate’s cost-basis analysis, the specialist’s reserve. Each report is drawn from the live record and named for the conversation it serves. When the data cannot support a figure, the Registry refuses to produce one — a refusal notice, not a report with caveated numbers. What a counterparty reads is what the record can prove: reproducible figures, tamper-evident documents, honest grading. We do not certify authenticity — and we say so.
Open a register.
Begin with a single work, or import the whole collection. The record starts the moment you do. Access is by invitation.