A card you never touch: the record for a vault-held card

Step by step

1. 01Look the cert up on the day of deposit. On the grader’s own site, with the date. Save the result and the grader’s images beside the card’s own photographs if you ever held it. This is the record the card is matched against when it comes out.
2. 02Record the holder in its own words. The platform’s or vault’s statement of where the card sits and under whose name, copied with the date. Where a platform names a third-party vault, the record carries the name as the platform gives it and nothing more.
3. 03Keep the withdrawal terms as they stood. The notice required, any charges named, the time the platform gives itself to ship, and what the terms say happens to a card that is never withdrawn. Terms change; the copy with its date is what you hold.
4. 04Read the chain entry, if there is one. The mint, the current holder and any burn, with their dates and links. A burn is what some platforms write when a card is shipped out; a sell-back is written as a transfer back to the platform. Copy the links into the record and note what each one is.
5. 05Check the platform’s own item page from time to time. A dated screenshot of the item as the platform shows it, a few times a year and before any sale. If the page changes what it says about the card or its holder, the earlier screenshot is the record of what was said before.
6. 06Match on arrival. When the card ships, look the cert up again, compare the grader’s images to the slab in hand, and check the holder and the label against the deposit record. Write down the date it arrived and who signed for it.

What this check does not prove

• That the named vault holds the card. A platform’s record names a holder in its own words. Nothing a collector can read from outside confirms that the card sits there, and this guide does not say it does.
• That the chain entry is the card. The chain proves the token: its mint, its holder, its burn. It does not prove that a matching card sits on a shelf, and a token can exist with no card behind it or a card with no token.
• What the card is worth. A grade is not a price. The lookup says nothing about value, and neither does this guide.
• Ownership. A matching record does not show who owns the card or whether the seller can pass title to it. That is a question for the seller, in writing.