For the Trade
Every principle the Society teaches meets its test at the moment of sale, and dealers stand on the other side of that moment. If you sell ancient objects with documentation, honesty, and care, you are already doing the work this Society exists to encourage. This page is an invitation to do it with us.
The Case
The Society's curriculum teaches collectors to ask about provenance, to value documentation, to expect written guarantees, and to walk away from material that cannot withstand scrutiny. For dealers who cut corners, that buyer is a problem. For dealers who work honestly, that buyer is the market you have been waiting for: one that understands why a documented object costs more, keeps the records you provide, and comes back.
The formal standards of the trade already exist in the codes of the leading dealer associations, and the Society encourages every eligible dealer to pursue membership in them. What the Society adds is the other half of the equation: a buying public educated to notice, and to reward, the dealers who meet those standards.
The Commitment
The Antiquartist Code binds collectors. The Dealer's Pledge is its mirror for the trade: five commitments, one for each article, adapted to the seller's side of the transaction. Affirming it costs nothing and is enforced by nothing but your own name. That is the point.
Document every sale. Provide a detailed invoice, the object's known history, and a written statement of authenticity with every object sold, at every price level.
Acquire with diligence. Establish to the best of your ability that material you take in was not stolen or looted, and decline what cannot withstand scrutiny, whatever it costs the day's business.
Disclose condition honestly. Describe repairs and restoration in writing before the sale, and favor the object's long-term welfare in any intervention you commission.
Educate the buyer. Pass provenance forward with the object, encourage every customer to keep records, and send objects home with their documentation started rather than lost.
Strengthen the chain. Treat every sale as one link in an object's long history: what leaves your hands better documented than it arrived makes the whole field more honest.
To be clear: the Society does not certify, vet, or endorse dealers, and affirming the Pledge confers no designation from us. It is a public self-commitment, made on your own reputation, which is the only currency this trade has ever really run on.
Like the Code, the Pledge is meant to be lived with: print it, sign it on behalf of your business, and hang it where your customers can see it.
Download the Printable Pledge (PDF)Taking Part
Print and sign the Pledge, then write to info@antiquartists.org stating that your business affirms it. You are welcome to say so publicly in your own materials; we ask only that you represent it accurately, as a commitment rather than a credential.
The Society's Object Record is free to print and include with every object you sell, with the provenance section already filled in. A dealer who starts each customer's documentation does more for this field in a year than most policies do in a decade.
For the counter and the shipping box, there is also a 4 × 6 specimen card: a completed example record, watermarked as a specimen, that shows the buyer what documentation looks like and sends them to the Society to learn the practice themselves.
And for coins and small objects, the 2 × 2 mini record is a fillable, two-sided provenance card sized to sit behind a coin in its flip, printed twelve to a sheet. Fill one for each piece you sell and the documentation travels inside the holder.
Keep the flyer or card at your counter or in your shipments. A customer who learns to collect responsibly is a customer for decades, and the Society's materials are free for exactly this use.
Membership in the Society is individual and open to everyone who shares the mission, including those in the trade. The founding list is free to join, and the perspective of experienced dealers will make the curriculum better.
A Shared Interest
Questions, ideas, or a pledge to record? Write to info@antiquartists.org.
Society of Antiquartists