Item details

What goes where on a passport

Every field on a VeroTag passport, what it actually means, and how to decide when two of them look like they both fit. Written because they often do.

01Choosing a category

This is the field people get stuck on, and almost always for the same reason.

The rule

Category answers what kind of object is this — never what is it about.

A category is a physical form: a card, a comic, a coin, a pair of shoes. It is not a subject, a sport, a franchise, or a player.

If the answer you are reaching for is a topic — Basketball, Star Wars, Marvel, Pokémon — that belongs in Set / series, not here.

The question we get asked most

"Is a basketball card Trading Cards or Sports Memorabilia?" — Trading Cards. Every time.

It is a card. That is the object. Basketball is what the card is about, and the passport records that in Set / series, where it stays searchable without forcing an unanswerable choice. Sports Memorabilia is for the things that are not cards.

1986 Fleer Michael Jordan rookie card

Category: Trading Cards
Set / series: 1986–87 Fleer Basketball
Manufacturer: Fleer
Card #: 57

Michael Jordan game-worn Bulls jersey

Category: Sports Memorabilia
Team / event: Chicago Bulls · 1996 Finals
Maker: Champion
Type: Game-worn jersey

Same player, same sport, two different objects — so two different categories. Both are findable by searching "Jordan", because the search reads Set / series and Team / event too.

Trading Cards is not TCG-only. Some collectors read "trading cards" as meaning Magic, Pokémon, Lorcana and the like, and reach for Sports Memorabilia for anything sports-related. The category covers both: a card is a card whether you play a game with it or not. Pokémon, Magic, Topps baseball, Panini basketball, Garbage Pail Kids — all Trading Cards, distinguished by their Set / series.

02The eight borderline cases

Where two categories genuinely both look right. The test in every row is the same one: what is the object, physically.

If you have…	Use	Because
A sports cardJordan rookie, Topps Mantle	Trading Cards	It is a card. The sport goes in Set / series.
A signed ball, jersey, bat or ticket	Sports Memorabilia	An object connected to a sport that is not a card.
A movie prop or costume	Entertainment Memorabilia	Production-used. If it is a mass-produced toy of the same character, it is Action Figures.
A movie poster	Art & Prints	It is a printed sheet, collected as one. Use Entertainment Memorabilia only if it was used in production.
A comic book	Comics	Issue-numbered periodicals. Bound volumes and graphic-novel first editions go to Books & Manuscripts.
An ancient coin	Coins & Currency	If it circulated as money, it is a coin — however old. Historical Artifacts is for objects that did not.
A signed vinyl LP	Vinyl Records	The record is the object; the signature is recorded in Signed by, not in the category.
A luxury watch	Watches	Watches and Sneakers have their own categories, so they never fall into Jewelry or Fashion.

Still torn? Pick the category describing the object's form, and put the thing that made you hesitate into Set / series. Category is a shelf; Set / series is the label. You can change a category later — it is recorded on the item's history, which is the point, not a penalty.

03Why your fields are named differently

The passport asks a watch for a Reference # and a card for a Card #. Same underlying field, different question — because "Card #" is meaningless on a Submariner. Pick a category to see what it will ask you for.

Fields that do not apply are hidden, not left blank. Rarity is meaningful for cards, coins and stamps and meaningless for a watch, so a watch is never asked. A form two-thirds empty teaches people the questions are padding.

04Identity fields

What the object is. These are the fields a buyer reads first.

Field	What to put
Collectible namePublicAnchored	What it is, as you would say it out loud. The only required field. 1999 Charizard Holo 1st Edition · Rolex Submariner Date
CategoryPublicAnchored	The kind of object. See section 01 — it also decides which fields you are asked for.
Item formPublicAnchored	How it is presented, not what it is. Raw (loose), Graded slab (encased by a grader), Memorabilia (an object rather than a card), or Manufactured. Different from Category: a Charizard is Trading Cards and a Graded slab.
YearPublicAnchored	When it was made or released. Free text, so approximate and pre-modern dates fit. 1999 · 1887 · c. 1890

05Catalog fields

Where the object sits in its own world. All optional — but they are how someone confirms your item is the exact one they are looking for.

Field	What to put
Set / seriesPublicAnchored	The run it belongs to — and where the sport, franchise or player goes. Base Set · 1986–87 Fleer Basketball · Marilyn portfolio
ManufacturerPublicAnchored	Who made it. Relabelled per category — Publisher for comics, Mint for coins, Label for vinyl, Artist for prints. Wizards of the Coast · Topps · Parlophone
Card #PublicAnchored	Its number or code within the set. Becomes Reference #, VIN, ISBN, Scott #, Style code depending on category. 4/102 · 126610LN · DZ5485-612
Edition / variantPublicAnchored	What distinguishes this printing or version from the standard one. 1st Edition · Shadowless · Refractor · Lost & Found colourway
RarityPublic	Scarcity tier only — Common through One-of-One. Not the same as the variant: a Refractor goes in Edition / variant, its scarcity here.
Edition sizePublic	How many exist, when it is a numbered run. The item's own number goes in Card #. Print 31 of 250 → Card # 31, Edition size 250

06Grading & attestation

Someone else's opinion of your item, and how a stranger checks it.

Field	What to put
Graded / authenticated byPublic	The company that assessed it. PSA · CGC · WATA · PCGS · JSA
GradePublic	Their verdict, on their own scale — free text, because the scales disagree. PSA 8 · 9.4 A+ · MS-65 · VG+ / VG
Certificate numberPublic	The number on the label. The most valuable field on this page — it is the only detail a buyer can check against a source that is not us, by looking it up on the grader's own site. 84726193 · AL88291
ConditionPublic	Your own assessment, on one shared ladder — Gem Mint down to Poor. Separate from Grade, which is a third party's. An item can have both, one, or neither.
Signed byPublic	Who signed it, and where. Michael Jordan · Andy Warhol — verso, pencil

Grade and Condition are not duplicates. Grade is what a grading company said, on their scale, and is backed by a certificate number. Condition is what you say, on a scale everyone shares. A slabbed card can be PSA 8 with the slab itself scuffed.

07Physical description

Shown only for the categories where they mean something.

Field	What to put
Size / DimensionsPublic	Sneakers and clothing, and the physical extent of art and artifacts. US 10.5 · 41 mm · 36 × 36 in
Material / MediumPublic	What it is made of — or for art, what it is made with. 18k gold · diamond · Screenprint on paper · Oystersteel
PlatformPublic	The system a game runs on, or the format a record plays at. Nintendo Entertainment System · 12" 33⅓ Mono
Country of originPublic	Where it was made, minted or pressed. Often decisive for value. United Kingdom — a UK first pressing is not a US reissue
MileagePublic	Vehicles only. Deliberately kept out of the integrity anchor, because it is true only on the day you write it.

08Description vs Background

Two public prose fields, and the difference is worth getting right — they answer different questions.

Description — what it is

Plain and factual. The first thing a buyer reads, so it should settle what they are looking at.

"First-edition holographic Charizard from the 1999 English Base Set, encapsulated by PSA. Shadowless printing with the 1st Edition stamp at lower left."

Background — why it matters

History, significance, the story. Where the item sits in its world, rather than what is in front of you.

"The chase card of the set that launched Pokémon in the West, and the card most responsible for the modern graded-card market."

If you only fill in one, make it Description. A passport with a story and no statement of what the object is asks the reader to do the work.

09What stays private

These never appear on a public passport, are never included in token metadata, and are never visible to someone who scans your tag. They are yours.

Field	What to put
Estimated valuePrivate	What you think it is worth today. You set this yourself — we do not price your items, and nothing on the platform revalues them for you.
Purchase pricePrivate	What you paid, and when, in Acquired.
Storage locationPrivate	Where it physically lives. Vault A · shelf 3 · Safe deposit box 12
Condition notesPrivate	Flaws in your own words — wear, centering, a soft corner. Different from the Condition ladder, which is a single choice.
Personal notesPrivate	Anything you want kept with the item. The acquisition story, who you bought it from, what you plan to do with it.

Value is private by design, not by setting — there is no switch that makes it public. A passport that advertised what a collection is worth would be a shopping list.

Public Mode and Private Mode

Separate from the list above. Those fields are private whatever you do — this switch decides whether the item has a public page at all. It sits in the item header in your vault, and it takes effect immediately.

Setting	What it means
Public Mode	Anyone with the link, or holding the tag, can open this item’s passport. This is the default, because being able to check an item is the point of tagging it.
Private Mode	The public link stops resolving. Tapping the physical tag still verifies it — holding the item is the point of the tag, and a buyer standing in front of you must be able to check what they are looking at.

Either way, your estimated value, purchase price, storage location and notes are never public. Private Mode withdraws the link; it is not what protects those fields.

10Anchored fields

Some fields carry an Anchored mark above. Here is what that means in practice.

When an item is registered, eleven fields are combined and fingerprinted. That fingerprint is the integrity anchor, and it is what lets anyone confirm the record has not been quietly rewritten since. The anchored fields are the ones that identify the object: name, category, item form, set, year, manufacturer, card number, edition.

You can still edit them. Correcting a typo is not tampering, and a record you cannot fix is not honest either. What happens is that the fingerprint is recalculated and the change is written to the item's history — what changed, and when.

Try it

Edit any field and watch the fingerprint. Two of these are anchored and two are not — the difference is the whole idea.

Year anchored Manufacturer anchored Grade not anchored Certificate number not anchored

Integrity anchor

—

Unchanged since registration.

Provenance history

Registered

Why the history distinguishes two kinds of edit. Filling in a field you had left empty is recorded as Details added. Changing a field that already had a value is recorded as Details amended. A passport completed carefully over time should not read like one that has been altered — so a buyer sees which of the two happened.

Everything else — grade, certificate number, condition, photos, all the physical description fields, and every private field — sits outside the anchor. Editing those changes no fingerprint at all.

11Provenance — the score and the history

Two different things that sit next to each other: a number summarising how well-supported a record is, and the list of everything that has happened to it.

What a passport actually claims

Every passport sits in one of four lanes. The lane is decided by us, never by the person registering the item, and it is the honest ceiling on what the record asserts.

Lane	Score	What it means
Catalog entry	25	Created without a verified tag read. It describes an item but is not bound to a physical tag.
Registered	55	A physical tag was read and permanently bound at registration. The tag was not cryptographically authenticated, and nobody has examined the item.
Tag authenticated	75	The tag answered a cryptographic challenge proving it is the original chip bound to this record. Nobody has appraised the item itself.
VeroTag Verified	90	The tag is authenticated and an authenticator has examined the item and attested to it.

The gap between the top two lanes is the whole point. Cryptography can prove a tag is genuine. It can never prove that the object the tag is attached to is. Those are separate claims, and collapsing them into one word — "verified" — would assert exactly the thing the cryptography does not establish. Only VeroTag Verified says anything about the object.

How the score is built

Deliberately simple, and only from things that are actually checked:

Component	Effect
Lane	Sets the base — 25, 55, 75 or 90 as above.
Has a photograph	+5
Seal intact	+5

Capped at 100. A high score is mostly a statement about how the record was created, not about how much effort went into filling it in — which is why adding more description does not move it.

The history

Append-only and timestamped: entries are added, never edited or removed. Kept server-side, so it is not something an owner can rewrite.

Entry	Means
Registered	The passport was created and bound to its tag.
Details added	A field that was empty got filled in.
Details amended	A field that already had a value was changed. Kept separate from the above on purpose — see section 10.
Photograph replaced	The image changed, which is worth distinguishing from a text edit.
Ownership transferred	The item changed hands.

12Passport, tag & security

The hardware, and the terms you will see on a passport.

Term	What it is
Tag	The physical NFC sticker or seal on the item. Inside is an NTAG 424 DNA chip, which signs a fresh, single-use cryptogram every time it is tapped — so a copied tag cannot replay an old one.
Tag UID	The chip's permanent, factory-locked hardware ID. It cannot be rewritten, and it is what ties the physical article to its record. Shown only as its last two bytes on a public page — anyone holding the item can read it, and nobody else needs to.
Passport ID	The readable code for a record, like VT-4K7P-9Q2M. The last character is a check character, so a mistyped or transposed code is rejected rather than quietly opening the wrong passport.
VT · VG · VC	Who registered it, fixed at registration and never changed by a later sale. VT VeroTag — registered by its collector · VG VeroGuard — registered by an authenticator · VC VeroCore — registered by the manufacturer
Seal status	Intact, Broken, Retired, or Not established. Always public — a broken seal is precisely what a buyer needs to see, so it is never something an owner can hide.
Integrity anchor	A SHA-256 fingerprint of the eleven identifying fields, taken at registration and stored with the record. If any of them were altered without going through the normal edit path, the fingerprint would no longer match. It is combined with a random per-record salt, so publishing the fingerprint does not let anyone work backwards to the values behind it.
Visibility	Whether the passport opens for anyone with the link. Setting it to private withdraws the link — a verified tap still renders the page, because the entire point of the tag is that physically holding the item proves something. A buyer with the item in hand must be able to check it.

What is not here yet. Tokens and any on-chain record are not live — no passport has been minted, and the integrity anchor described above is a fingerprint held by us, not a blockchain transaction. It is worth stating plainly, because a trust product that overstates its own mechanics has undermined the thing it sells.