Condition Timeline
3-minute read · v1.2 · Collector+
Most inventory apps treat condition as a static label. AssetVault treats it as a record over time. Condition Timeline lets you snap a dated photo of any item — a watch's patina, a sneaker's wear, a slab's edge, a bottle's fill — and stack the photos by date so you (and an insurer, or a buyer) can see how the item has aged.
The longer you own AssetVault, the more useful this becomes. Year-one photos are nice. Year-five photos are evidence.
What you can document
- Watches — patina on lume, dial fade, bezel discoloration, bracelet wear. Real value drivers for vintage pieces.
- Sneakers — sole yellowing, midsole crease lines, toe-box creasing, lace condition. The "DS to beat-up" gradient that determines resale value.
- Cards / comics — surface scratches, corner wear, edge whitening that develop over years. Especially useful if you're not slabbing immediately and want to track condition before submission.
- Wine, whiskey, spirits — fill level over time, label condition, ullage on aging bottles. Whiskey collectors track shoulder vs neck fills as bottles age.
- Firearms — bluing wear, stock dings, range-induced patina. Pairs with maintenance log entries for a full custody record.
- LEGO / Funko — box wear, MIB → MISB → opened progression.
How it works
- Open any item's Detail screen.
- Tap the Condition strip near the top — it shows the latest condition photo (or an empty slot if you haven't started yet).
- Tap Add condition photo. Take a photo or pick from your library.
- Add a one-line note (optional): "noticed a hairline scratch on the bezel," "shoulder fill," "slight box yellowing on the spine."
- Save. The photo is timestamped to today and added to the strip.
Tap any photo in the strip to expand it. The note and the original date stay with the image forever.
Why date-stamped, and why local
Three reasons the dating matters:
- Insurance claims — a dated photo from before damage happened is the strongest evidence of pre-loss condition.
- Resale — buyers want provenance. A six-photo condition history dating back three years is far more credible than a single "current" photo.
- Memory — you'll forget when the watch first developed that crystal scratch. The timeline remembers.
Storage is local: the photos sit in your app's documents directory and get deleted when you delete the item. Like everything else in AssetVault, they don't go to a server. Cross-device migration travels via Full Export ZIP (which bundles all photos including timeline) — the encrypted backup carries metadata only.
Tips for better timelines
- Take the same shot every time. Same angle, same lighting, same framing. Easier to spot subtle changes when nothing else moves.
- Annotate damage or change. "First noticed scratch on bezel here" is more useful than a silent photo a year later.
- Quarterly cadence works for most items. Watches, sneakers, slabs change slowly. Bottles and food/drink shelves benefit from monthly.
- Don't skip year-zero. The day you got it is the most important entry.
Privacy
Condition timeline photos never leave your device unless you trigger an action that explicitly uses them (like AI Photo ID, which sends one image at a time to our AI proxy). They're not in any analytics, not in any crash report. They're yours.