The tools to write it down yourself.

The same instruments we use when we document a collection — set out so that you can do it without us.

What it is

Six documents. Fifty-three pages. You print them at your own desk and fill them in by hand.

The collection register. One numbered line per card — set, number, grader, grade, certificate, what you paid and when. It is the spine: every other sheet refers back to a number on this one.
A record for each card. Two pages per card. What it is and where it sits in the market on the first; on the second, ruled and blank, the questions no database holds — where it came from, what it cost and how that felt, who you told, why this one.
The Heirloom Letter. A letter to whoever opens the box. Ruled leaves, and before them the short list of things a family should not do in the first week — beginning with doing nothing at all for a little while.
The photograph guide. How to shoot a slab so the certificate reads and the surface is honest. Written for a phone on a kitchen table, not for a studio.
The contact sheet. Who should be called, in what order, and what each of them is for. Filled in by you, because only you know.
The certificate log. Every cert number in one place, so a grader’s record can be pulled without handling a single card.

The six printed documents of the Documentation Kit fanned out on tissue — the cover sheet, the Collection Register and the card records, with a gold seal.

What it is not

It is not an appraisal, and there are no valuations in it. We do not tell you what your cards are worth — we give you the pages on which to set down what you know.

Nor is it a book about collecting. There is almost no prose in it, on purpose. It is a set of forms, and the writing in it is yours.

A leaf headed “In the owner’s hand” at close range: six printed prompts, each followed by ruled lines left blank to be written on.

How it works

You buy it, and tell us the name. One field at checkout: the name to print on the bookplate. It is asked for rather than taken from your card, because this is often bought for someone else.
It arrives, made for that name. A PDF, personalized to the name you gave and numbered in sequence. Each one is prepared by hand, so it comes within a day rather than the same second.
You print it and begin. It is made for ordinary letter paper — nothing special is needed. Start with the register, then fill in a Card Record for the five that matter most: the ones whose story only you know.

The Documentation Kit cover sheet at close range, printed on cream stock and personalized beneath the title with the owner’s name and the month.

$75

About what it costs to have a single card graded.

And it is credited in full against a Record commissioned through August 31, 2027. If you begin here and later decide you would rather we did the work, the seventy-five dollars comes off — so starting yourself costs you nothing but the trying.

Buy the kit — $75

Secure checkout by Stripe. You will be asked for the name to print. Delivered as a PDF within one working day. Returns and remakes.

Who it suits

Five to twenty-five cards is where it works best — enough that it cannot be held in your head, few enough that an evening or two finishes it. Fewer than five and you may only want a single card documented properly. Many more than twenty-five, and you will want the register sheets run again, which the files let you do.

And if what you actually want is for someone else to do this — because the collection is large, or because it is already an estate and nobody left knows what is in it — then that is the work we do, and this is not the right thing to buy.