HowTo Network emblem How To: Gaming THE HOW TO CO. — EDITION 10
A framed invented game poster on a cream wall with a lit shelf of merchandise beneath it.

SHELF 07 / 07 · PROVENANCE & PAPERWORK

Everything here has a story and paperwork.

Amiibo, autographs, art books, the poster that earned its frame. Shelf seven is the one where what you can prove is worth more than what you paid.

Anatomy of a claim read the marks.

DRAWN IN THE GALLERY

A piece of memorabilia is two objects: the thing, and the argument that the thing is what the seller says it is. Four marks carry that argument, and they are nowhere near equal. A signature is ink laid on a surface anyone can buy. A serial struck into the mount and repeated on a certificate is a number somebody else had to write down first, in a ledger you can go and check. Below, the same four marks placed on the only scale that decides what they are worth.

THE PIECE THE PAPER 01 SIGNATURE 03 SERIAL 04 HOLOGRAM 02 CERTIFICATE SAME SERIAL ISSUER SEAL SCALE OF PROOF 01 SIGNATURE 02 CERTIFICATE 04 HOLOGRAM 03 SERIAL MATCH EASY TO FAKE HARD TO FAKE DIFFICULTY OF FORGERY

SCALE OF PROOF · DIFFICULTY OF FORGERY

  1. EASY TO FAKE
  2. 01SignatureInk laid on a surface anyone can buy. A steady hand and an afternoon.
  3. 02CertificatePaper, printed by whoever owns the printer. Worth exactly what the issuer is worth.
  4. 04HologramFoil somebody had to manufacture. Expensive to reproduce, which is the entire point of it.
  5. 03Serial matchOne number, struck into the mount and written again on the paper — and again in a ledger you can go and check.
  6. HARD TO FAKE

Two of the four cost something.

MARKS 04 & 03

A signature is ink on a surface and a certificate is a sentence on paper: both are asserted, and asserting is free. The other two are not. A hologram has to be manufactured, on tooling a forger would have to buy before starting. A serial is cheap to stamp — but the number was written down somewhere else first, in a ledger you can go and check and nobody outside it can add a line to. Manufactured, or independently recorded: that is what puts these two at the hard end of the scale, and why the paperwork sits down at the easy end with the pen.

Macro on a holographic authenticity sticker, the rainbow shift visible across it.
04 HOLOGRAM · THE FOIL, UP CLOSE
Macro on a serial number struck into the metal mount rail of a framed invented piece, the same code repeated on the paperwork lying beside it.
03 SERIAL MATCH · STRUCK INTO THE MOUNT

Three cases at this shelf chips, ink and everything after.

SHELF 07 · CASES 01–03

The bay splits three ways. One case for the toys that are also save files, one for anything a person put their name on, and one for everything a game left behind that was never a game.

CASE 01 · FIGURE + CHIPVISIT → AMIIBO. A figurine with a chip in the base. Nintendo made collecting a save file, and then quietly stopped printing half of them. SCANNING · PRINT RUNS · CARDS CASE 02 · INK & SLABSVISIT → SIGNED & GRADED. What a signature is worth once somebody who is not the seller has agreed it is real. AUTOGRAPHS · COA · SLAB GRADES CASE 03 · THE SIDE SHELFVISIT → GAME MERCH. Art books, soundtrack vinyl, the jacket from a collector edition. Everything the game left behind. ART BOOKS · SOUNDTRACKS · APPAREL
The corner of a framed and signed invented game cover, the signature ink catching the shelf light.

A signature is a claim. So is the certificate. Proof is what somebody else had to write down.

POPPY — CLASS: CURATOR
A framed and signed invented piece with its certificate framed beside it and the padded envelope it shipped in mounted behind, lit like an exhibit.

FROM THE CURATOR

Keep the paper. The paper is half the object.

I have watched people spend four figures on a signed cover and then leave the certificate in a kitchen drawer under the takeaway menus. Frame them together, or at least tape the envelope it shipped in to the back of the mount. Photograph the signing if you were there. Write the date on the backing board in pencil. Everything else about this shelf can be reprinted, reissued or repopped — the story of where your copy came from is the one part nobody else can manufacture, and it is the part collectors throw away first.

BY POPPY — CLASS: CURATOR · THEPINKPIPER.GG

Reads for this shelf coming to the archive.

5 PIECES · IN THE ARCHIVE

Five pieces being written for shelf seven. Listed here so you know what is coming; they are not links until they exist.

01

How to tell a real autograph from a printed one

Ink sits on top of a surface and a print sits in it. What to look for at a raking angle, and the three tells a phone camera can find.

BY POPPY · 6 MIN

02

How to make an amiibo scan when the reader keeps missing it

Where the chip actually is in the base, why the Switch reader is fussier than the 3DS one, and what to do before you assume the figure is dead.

BY IRIS · 4 MIN

03

How to decide whether to slab a signed cover or frame it

Grading locks in a number and locks out the light. Framing does the opposite. Which one your piece is actually for.

BY POPPY · 7 MIN

04

How to store a game poster so it does not go yellow

Acid in the mount board, UV through the glass, and the cardboard tube that is quietly destroying the thing it protects.

BY POPPY · 5 MIN

05

How to price merch that nobody has listed in two years

When there are no comps, you build them. Print runs, regional exclusives, and reading a sold listing that is older than the console.

BY IRIS · 8 MIN

You are here.

SHELF 07 / 07 · MEMORABILIA

01 02 03 04 05 06 YOU ARE HERE 07 MEMORABILIA. AMIIBO · SIGNED & GRADED · GAME MERCH
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 MEMORABILIA. AMIIBO · SIGNED & GRADED · GAME MERCH

Every chapter in this region is a bay on this wall. This one is 07. Back to the wall to walk the rest.