The designer bag authentication process, step by step

The designer bag authentication process — what's actually done, not what's promised.

We don’t sell you a vibe word. Before a firm conditional offer, we examine the bag in hand — or on recorded intake for a ship-in — and we write down what we find.

Request a preliminary range · Book a private appointment

Preliminary ranges are not verification and not offers. All firm offers are conditional pending physical inspection and authentication.

What “authentication” means — and what it can’t mean

Authentication is not a scan that returns a yes or a no. It is a process of accumulating evidence about how an object was made, performed by someone who has handled enough genuine examples to recognise when something deviates.

That carries two consequences most marketing copy skips:

It is an opinion, formed from evidence, with a confidence level. A careful assessor says “this is consistent with genuine production for its era, and here is what I examined” — not “certified 100% authentic” as a slogan.
A decline is not an accusation. Most bags we can’t verify aren’t fakes. They are bags with replaced hardware, a heavy prior repair, an era we don’t have solid references for, or a combination of signals we can’t resolve to our own standard. The honest outcome is “we can’t bring this to our standard”, not “this is counterfeit”.

We would rather say we can’t verify a bag than take it and be wrong.

What does not prove a bag is genuine

This section costs us deals and it stays on the page anyway.

The authenticity card. Genuine cards have circulated in volume without their original bags. A card tells you a card exists.
The receipt. It proves a transaction happened, not which object was in the bag.
The box and dust bag. Widely reproduced, widely separated from their bags, freely sold on their own.
A date code or serial number. It is a manufacturing reference, not a certificate. Newer production at some houses uses embedded chips, so an absent visible code can be entirely normal — and a present code proves only that a code is present.
A prior sale on a resale platform. It tells you another process reached a conclusion. It does not tell you the process was good.
The seller’s story. Sincerity is not evidence. Most people with a problem bag genuinely believe it’s fine — they were sold it too.

All of the above are useful for provenance. Provenance and authenticity are different questions, and the useful buyer keeps them separate.

What is actually examined

Depending on the house, model, and era, intake typically includes:

Materials and construction. How the leather or canvas behaves in the hand — weight, grain, coating. Stitching count and consistency along known seams. Edge paint application and how it has aged. Lining material and how it wears. This is the bulk of the work and the hardest to fake convincingly at volume, because it is expensive to replicate manufacturing tolerances.

Hardware. Weight in the hand. Finish and the pattern of plating wear — real wear shows where a bag is actually handled. Zipper action and how the pull sits. Clasp tolerances and how a closure seats. Engraving depth and font. Hardware is often where a hybrid piece gives itself away.

Shape and proportion. Compared against known model references we keep specifically for comparison. Proportion errors are frequently the first thing an experienced eye registers before it can articulate why.

Codes, serials, and cards — treated as supporting signals only, weighed for internal consistency with the era and model, never as a verdict on their own.

Provenance paperwork — helpful when present, never required, never sufficient alone.

Condition mapping. Corners, handles, base, odour, repairs, alterations — captured in a written condition note whether we buy, consign, or decline.

Why machine checks alone are not the answer

Machine and database-assisted verification is genuinely useful. We use it where the material is supported, and it catches things an eye can miss.

It is also not sufficient, and the reason is documented: hybrid counterfeits — genuine components combined with fabricated ones — have passed machine checks. A bag assembled around real hardware, or a real body fitted with fabricated parts, can satisfy a check that is looking at a subset of the object.

So machine verification is one input in a stack, not the stack.

The value bands

The process scales with what is at stake:

Value band	What happens
Within the buy heart ($500–$5,000)	In-hand construction review, hardware and proportion assessment, condition mapping, plus machine verification where the material is supported
Above $5,000	Everything above, plus an independent specialist whose finding binds us — including when the finding costs us the purchase
Houses and eras we don’t verify	Declined, with a reason in writing where we can give one, and a referral to a specialist who works that category when one exists — no cut expected from you for the referral

The binding part matters. A buyer who commissions a specialist and then reserves the right to ignore the specialist has bought themselves cover, not verification.

What we don’t claim at soft-launch

We do not advertise third-party lab badges we do not use.
We do not use “100% authentic” as a marketing adjective.
We do not treat a dust bag, box, or receipt as proof.
We do not claim credentials, years in business, or affiliations we don’t have.
We decline pieces we can’t bring to our own standard, and we say why in writing when we can.

Houses and categories we decline, and why

Our declines are about verification confidence, not brand snobbery:

Exotic skins — regulatory and verification complexity we are not set up to handle responsibly.
Vintage Chanel from before roughly 2005 — era references and documented problem patterns, including serials in known problem ranges.
The Chanel “Kelly” and similar edge cases where the reference base is thin.
Anything we can’t verify to our own standard, full stop.

Detail on the Chanel policy is on Sell Chanel → and the buy box overall on What we buy →.

What you receive, either way

A written condition report: a grade, a written flaw list, a photo of each flaw, measurements, and what verification was performed. It is yours whether we buy, consign, or decline. You can take it to the next buyer, and you should.

Then one of: a firm conditional buyout number, or a consignment recommendation with arithmetic you can actually compare. If you accept a buyout, the payment method and timing are named — not described as “instant” if a transfer or cheque is involved.

Ship-in intake

If you can’t reach an appointment: prepaid insured label, the parcel opened on camera on arrival, a firm conditional offer within one business day of arrival, and payment within one business day of acceptance by the method named at acceptance. Recorded intake exists so that neither of us has to rely on memory about what condition the bag arrived in.

FAQ

Can you authenticate my bag if I'm not selling it?

At soft-launch our process runs as part of buying or consigning — it isn’t offered as a standalone paid service. If you need a standalone opinion, we’ll point you to independent specialists who do that work.

Can you tell from photos?

No. Photos support a preliminary range and nothing more. They miss odour, sticky lining, hardware weight, stamping depth, and repair history — several of which are the deciding factors.

Does a missing date code mean my bag is fake?

Not necessarily. Some newer production uses embedded chips rather than visible codes, so absence can be normal for the era. What matters is whether the code’s presence or absence is consistent with the model and era.

What happens if you decline my bag?

You keep the written condition report, including what we examined. We’ll tell you why in writing where we can, and refer you to a specialist in that category when one exists. A decline means we can’t verify it to our standard — it is not a declaration that your bag is counterfeit.

Do you guarantee authenticity?

We describe what we do rather than issuing marketing guarantees: in-hand examination, machine verification where supported, and an independent specialist above $5,000 whose finding binds us. Any specific warranty language applicable to a purchase or consignment appears in the agreement itself.

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