01
Physical examination
Wood, wool, paper and ink are examined under raking light and magnification. Stick pattern, stitch count, stock type and punch marks are recorded as found, not as hoped.
Shop the Vault
Six rooms, one standard
Every category is graded the same way. A ticket stub gets the same written file as a $4,800 bat, because the work is the same work.
Featured pieces
Eight pieces we would keep
The eight pieces currently on the wall in the shop. Photographs are being added; until then the cards show the Vault's own plate.
How authentication works
Three steps, written out
02
Documentary comparison
Photographs, club records, newspapers and family documents are compared against the piece. Where a claim cannot be supported, we say so on the certificate rather than in the sales copy.
03
Certificate and file
A numbered certificate is issued and the full file travels with the piece. The number is printed on the slab, the case or the brass plate so the piece and the paper cannot be separated.
The story
Three generations of the Hargrove family
The Vault began in 1978 as a single shelf in a hardware shop on Pike County Road. It is still run by the same family, and the standard has not changed: we only sell what we can prove, and we write down what we cannot.
From our buyers
What people say
“They told me the jersey had a club repair that did not match the thread, and they put it in writing before I paid. That is the reason I buy here.”Marguerite Dunn — Collector, 14 years
“The file that came with the ball was better than any auction catalogue I have read. Photographs, ink comparison, and a note about what they could not confirm.”Otis Whitfield — Buyer, 2024
“I sent a box of my father's things. They declined two of them because they could not document them, and paid fairly for the three they could.”Rowan Pike — Seller, 2023
“Insured shipping, arrived in a rigid case, brass plate matched the certificate number exactly. Nothing was improvised.”Delia Vance-Kerr — Buyer, 2025
The Vault list
New pieces, once a month
One letter a month: what came in, what we certified, and what we declined. No offers, no urgency, no counting down.