Why Verth exists
The market sets the value. You set the worth.
Most collections live in two places. A spreadsheet holds the prices. A memory holds the rest. One gets refreshed. The other gets lost.
Verth is a record for collectibles. It was built to keep both in the same place, for as long as the piece exists.
Two words
One of them is the market’s. One of them is yours.
Value: what the market says
A number is only as good as the sales behind it.
Verth reads recent sold listings and shows you the ones it used. When the sales are thin, the record says so instead of rounding up. The number moves when the market moves. It is market information, not a judgement about your piece.
Worth: what you say
Value is what someone would pay today. Worth is why the piece is still here.
Who you got it from. What you gave up for it. The afternoon it belonged to. None of that shows up in a sold listing, and none of it should be kept somewhere the price is not.
A price on its own is a spreadsheet. A story on its own is a shoebox. Verth keeps one record that holds both.
The number
How Verth prices collectibles.
What is the best way to price a collectible?
Look at what the same piece sold for recently. Not what sellers are asking, and not what a price guide printed last year. Verth starts every price from recent sold listings.
Why do two copies of the same piece have different prices?
Condition and grade. A small difference in grade can change the number more than the year or the maker. Verth matches each piece to sales of the same grade.
How often does the value of a collection change?
Every time a matching piece sells. That is why Verth keeps the number current instead of saving it once.
Why it exists
Half of what a piece is worth was never written down.
Finding what something sells for takes about a minute. That part is solved.
The other half has nowhere to live. Where a piece came from, who had it before, what happened the day it was found: the reason it is still in the collection at all. Every tool treats that as a notes field, if it keeps it at all. So it stays in someone’s head, and when the collection changes hands it is simply gone.
A price with no provenance is half a record. Verth keeps both halves in one place, on the piece, permanently.
That is the whole idea.
What Verth holds itself to
Six principles.
The number is never alone.
Every price stands on recent sold listings, and Verth shows them. If the comps are thin, we say so. A number without its evidence is a guess, and we will not print a guess beside your piece.
Worth is not a price.
Value is what the market will pay today. Worth is why the piece stays. Both belong on the record, side by side. Verth will never ask you to choose one over the other.
The record outlives the sale.
A piece can change hands. Its provenance should not start over. Where it came from, what it cost, who kept it and why. The record travels with the piece, past the moment money moves.
Quiet software.
Nothing blinks. Nothing sells you a feeling. You type the piece once and Verth does the filing. A good tool asks for your attention only when it has something worth saying.
The piece, lit plainly.
No graded cases stacked for effect. No breathless language. A clear photograph, a real number, the story in your own words. The piece is already interesting. It does not need our help.
A market and a story.
Cards, comics, coins, watches, vinyl, stamps, toys, art. If a thing trades, and someone remembers why they kept it, it belongs in a collection. More categories follow.
Hold us to these
What we will, and what we won’t.
What we will
- Show the comps behind every price we publish.
- Keep your stories yours, and private by default.
- Say plainly when a price is thin or uncertain.
What we won’t
- Sell your collection data to anyone.
- Show a number without its evidence.
- Call a market price an opinion of worth.
- Charge you before you choose to pay.
What it does
You add a piece once, by name or by barcode. Verth reads the market for it and keeps that number current, so the value on the screen is the value today, not the day you typed it.
Then you write the part no market can tell you: where it came from, who had it, why you kept it. Photos, a note, a voice recording. It stays attached to the piece for as long as you own it, and it goes with the piece if it ever leaves.
Verth is not open yet. Put your name on the list and we will write to you once, when it is.
Get in touch
Questions, or want early access?
Write to [email protected], or put your name on the list below.
One message, at launch. Nothing else.