Notes on the catalogue

Most of what crosses this desk never becomes a listing. A blade arrives with a good story and a soft attribution, or strong steel and a polish that hides more than it shows. Either is enough to stop it there.

The standard published elsewhere on this site exists because it has to be checkable. Papers, provenance, a named second opinion — none of it is a promise that a piece is good, only that it is what the listing says it is. That distinction has ended more conversations than any price ever has.

This page will carry the slower notes: a piece that got away, a polish that changed a blade’s whole reading, why a certificate is a floor and not a ceiling. Field Notes stays for closings. This is for everything before that.