Every bag that comes through our doors is examined before it's ever photographed, priced, or listed. We're not checking for a logo. We're checking for the dozens of small, hard-to-fake decisions a house's own ateliers make consistently, and that copies almost never get all the way right.
We start with the stitching. Authentic construction uses a consistent stitch count per centimetre, even tension, and thread that matches the leather in both colour and weight. On a counterfeit, stitching is often visibly uneven, or too perfect in a mechanical way that hand-finished houses don't produce. We count stitches along at least three seams and compare against known reference ranges for that model and production era.
Hardware is next, and it tells you more than most buyers expect. Zips, clasps, and feet should carry the correct engraving depth and font, but more importantly they should have the correct weight. Plated hardware on a counterfeit is frequently lighter because the base metal underneath differs. We weigh hardware on a jeweller's scale when a piece is borderline, and we check that the plating hasn't been touched up to hide wear that doesn't match the rest of the bag's condition.
Interior details matter as much as exterior ones. Date codes, serial stamps, and lining material are checked against the production timeline for that specific model, because houses change their linings, stamp formats, and even font kerning across the years. A stamp that's correct for 2019 but appears on a bag styled like a 2012 production is a red flag on its own.
Smell and material feel round out the physical inspection. Genuine vegetable-tanned and full-grain leathers age and smell differently to the treated leather and coated canvas often used in copies. This is the part of authentication that's hardest to teach from a photograph, which is part of why we don't authenticate sight-unseen from a seller's own images. Every piece is inspected in person by two of our specialists independently before it's approved.
When something doesn't clear, we say so and we decline the piece. We'd rather have four categories of product listed than five hundred with a question mark over any of them. That's also why every item that does pass ships with a Certificate of Authenticity naming what was checked, not just a stamp of approval.