Provenance

The documented history of ownership of an object such as a painting, watch or bottle of wine.

Example

A painting with sale records, exhibition history and receipts back to the artist's studio.

Missing provenance lowers value sharply and raises the risk of forgery or disputed title. It is part of what you are buying.

Authentication Cost — The cost of verifying that an object is genuine, such as expert opinions, certificates and scientific testing.
Condition Grading — A standardised assessment of an object's physical state, used to price collectibles such as coins, cards and comics.

Most alternative assets pay you nothing until the day you sell — Art, wine, watches and domains produce no income at all while you hold them - the return exists only as a price someone else agrees to pay later. A small minority of alternatives, like farmland and royalty rights, are genuinely different because they generate cash along the way. (9 min)
A price is a guess between two auction estimates until a hammer actually falls — There is no continuous market here - only comparable sales, an appraiser's estimate, and an auction reserve that can fail to be met. The gap between what an item is 'worth' and what it actually sells for can be wide, and it is measured only at the moment of an actual transaction. (12 min)
Appraising one item: authenticate before you price, not after — Five checks on one specific opportunity, starting with proof the object is genuinely what it claims to be - because a confident price on a fake or misattributed item is not a discount, it is a total loss waiting for a buyer to notice. (13 min)
A round trip through an auction house can cost 40 percent before the item has moved at all — Buyer's premium going in and seller's commission coming out compound into a breakeven hurdle most buyers never calculate - on top of holding costs and, in several jurisdictions, a higher tax rate reserved specifically for collectibles. This lesson is general information, not personal tax or legal advice, and rules vary by jurisdiction. (13 min)