Submit a scroll or manuscript for examination
Send photographs and the house reads them. The preliminary observations are free and arrive within two business days. After them, if you wish, the examinations that settle what photographs cannot: by hand, under ultraviolet, by a magiah, by radiocarbon.
- Photograph it. Six to twenty pictures in daylight: a whole column, the letters close, the tagin, a margin, the edge and the back, the sewing, anything damaged. Phone photographs are fine.
- Tell us what you know. Where it came from, how old it is said to be, what you would like to learn.
- Read the preliminary. It arrives by email and on your private page, with the services that follow and what each costs. Nothing further is owed.
Services and fees
The preliminary is free. Everything after it is a choice, priced here. Where a service needs the piece itself, it travels to the house and back insured, by arrangement, and is handled by the keeper alone.
| Service | What it is | Fee | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Preliminary observations photographs or documents |
A first reading of your photographs by the house: the script tradition they suggest, the layout, what is visible of the condition, and what can and cannot be settled from pictures. Not an appraisal and not a ruling. | Free | Within two business days |
| Full examination and written report the piece itself |
The piece examined by hand, under raking and ultraviolet light, in person or by video with the owner holding it. A written report in the language of the trade: physical description, script and scribal tradition, layout and Masoretic features, condition and repairs, and comparables where they exist. Signed. | From $450 | Two to three weeks |
| Formal appraisal the piece itself |
A signed valuation for insurance, estate, donation or sale, with the comparables it rests on. Written to the standard a qualified appraisal requires for a charitable deduction. A full examination is part of it. | From $650 | Two to three weeks |
| Kashrut examination (hagahah) the piece itself |
Letter by letter, by a certified magiah. Written findings on every doubtful letter, the status of the sefer, and an estimate for whatever repair would restore it. A computer check of the text is included. | Sefer Torah from $1,500; megillah from $250; tefillin and mezuzot from $40 | Two to six weeks, by size |
| Radiocarbon dating (AMS) the piece itself |
A sample of a few milligrams taken from a margin, analysed by accelerator mass spectrometry at an accredited laboratory, and returned as a calibrated date range at 95% probability, with our reading of what it means next to the script. The sample is invisible once taken. Note that the date belongs to the animal whose skin became the parchment; a scribe may have written on skins older than his own day, so a result is read together with the palaeography, never alone. | $900 per sample | Four to eight weeks |
| Ink and pigment analysis the piece itself |
Non-destructive analysis (XRF, and FTIR where useful) of the ink and any pigments: iron-gall or carbon, its metal profile, and whether it is consistent with the period the script suggests. Especially useful where later additions or repairs are suspected. | From $600 | Three to five weeks |
| Provenance research photographs or documents |
Registries, archives, community records, auction records and the looted-property databases, searched for the piece and for the communities and families it names. A written account of what was found, and what was not. | $150 per hour, two hours minimum | By agreement |
| Conservation assessment the piece itself |
A condition survey of the parchment, ink, sewing and rollers, a plan for stabilization in order of urgency, and how to store and handle the piece from now on. | From $300 | Two weeks |
| Consignment to the catalogue photographs or documents |
Private placement with the members of the house, by invitation, with a full dossier and plates. For pieces that merit it, after a full examination. | Commission, by agreement | By agreement |
What the preliminary is, and is not
It is a careful first reading by the house: the script tradition the letterforms suggest, the layout, the ruling where it shows, what is visible of the condition, repairs and later hands, and an honest statement of what cannot be settled from photographs. It is written for you, in plain language, with the trade terms beside it.
It is not an appraisal, not a valuation, and not a ruling on kashrut or on any letter. Those take the piece in hand. It does not say where the piece is or should be, and nothing you send asks.
On radiocarbon dating
A few milligrams of parchment from a margin, invisible once taken, go to an accredited laboratory for accelerator mass spectrometry. The result comes back as a calibrated date range, at 95% probability, for the animal whose skin became the parchment. That is a hard fact, and it settles arguments that a hundred years of connoisseurship could not.
It is read with care. A scribe may have written on skins older than his own day; a later repair may carry a newer date; the curve of the calibration makes some centuries sharper than others. The house returns the laboratory's certificate together with its own reading of the result beside the script, so you know not only the number but what it means.