What we read
What the house knows how to read — 65 entries across 6 rooms, with the checks that settle each one, free and in the open.
6 rooms65 entries98 pages beneath them
Every category hides its identity somewhere different. A handbag keeps it in how the pattern was cut and how the stitch was made. A watch keeps it inside the case, where reading it costs a watchmaker's twenty minutes. A diamond keeps it in a laboratory's records, which anyone can check online for nothing. A painting keeps it in a catalogue and in whoever is still willing to speak for the artist. A ring wears it on the inside of the shank, stamped into the metal. A mineral hides nothing at all — it just needs asking the right three questions.
So there is no single checklist here, and that is deliberate. There is one page per entry, in that entry's own terms, with the checks ordered by how much each one actually settles. Start with the room, then the name.
Two of the rooms are asking a different question from the other four. Nobody counterfeits amethyst, they mistake it for something else, so the stone room identifies rather than authenticates. And a hallmark is already in front of you when you look it up — what you want to know is what it promises, and whether the metal beneath it keeps the promise.
Verify a diamond certificate, or authenticate signed jewellery
Two questions, two answers: whether a grading report is genuine and describes your stone, and whether a signed piece is the house it claims to be.
Authenticate a work of art
Who is allowed to speak for each artist, what the catalogues record, and what a loupe settles before either of them is needed.
Authenticate a luxury watch
The manufactures the room reads, the checks that can be made on the wrist, and the ones that honestly need a watchmaker.
Authenticate a designer handbag
The maisons the room reads, and the checks that settle each of them — free, in the open, with no bag sent anywhere.
Jewellery Hallmarks: What the Stamp Inside Your Ring Means
A page for each mark people actually find — 925, 750, 585, 375, PLAT, GP, 800 — with what it guarantees, what it does not, and how to check the metal agrees with it.
How to Identify Rocks, Minerals and Crystals
A page for each of the minerals people actually pick up, with the three field tests that settle most of them and an honest account of what a photograph cannot reach.
Before you start
- What can The Lovenhall Registry help me identify?
- Six categories: diamonds and signed jewellery, works of art, luxury watches, designer handbags, the hallmarks stamped inside a ring, and rocks, minerals and crystals. The house publishes the checks for 65 entries across those rooms, free and in the open.
- Does the house issue certificates of authenticity?
- No. The Registry makes instruments and publishes what an authenticator looks at. It issues no opinions, no certificates and no verdicts, and it takes nothing in.
- Is a serial number enough to prove something is genuine?
- Almost never. Serials and date codes are copied freely, and most of these makers run no public database you could check one against. Construction, materials and internal consistency are the evidence; a code is a supporting detail.
- When should I pay for professional authentication?
- When the object is worth more than a few hundred dollars and you intend to buy, sell or insure it. A written opinion costs a small fraction of the item and is what a resale buyer will ask you for.
- Are these checks the same ones a professional uses?
- They are the checks a professional starts with, ordered by how conclusive each one is. What a professional adds is reference material, comparison against known-genuine examples, and in some categories equipment — which is why the expensive pieces still warrant one.
The RegistryA name we do not read yet
If the maker you are holding is not in the case, write and say so. The rooms grow in the order people ask.