No piece of paper that travels inside the bag proves the bag is genuine. The only thing that backs a buyer up is an examination of the physical piece by a third party who puts its name, and in some cases its money, behind the result.
That rules out almost everything a seller shows you as proof. The card, the box, the dust bag, the photographed receipt. Here is each one, with what it tells you and what it does not.
The authenticity card
It depends on the house, and for three of the best-selling houses it works against the bag.
Vestiaire Collective’s buyer help page states that Louis Vuitton, Fendi and Gucci typically do not issue authenticity cards. When a bag from one of those houses arrives with one, the platform reads it as a strong indicator of a counterfeit. What Gucci does include with a new purchase is a “Controllato” card, a quality-control slip. Resale guides such as Sell Your Bags report that counterfeiters reproduce it and that its absence on a pre-owned or vintage piece is normal.
Chanel did assign a serial number to every bag, on an interior sticker and a matching card. Fashionphile, which authenticates Chanel daily, says it does not base its determination on the sticker alone and occasionally receives bags with no sticker that turn out to be authentic. Resale guides put Chanel’s switch from sticker and card to an embedded chip at around April 2021. Chanel does not publish that date on any page we were able to read, so treat it as approximate.
Prada’s card is filled in by hand by the boutique sales associate, with the serial number, model, article code, colour, and the date and place of purchase, according to LegitGrails. It is useful for cross-checking against the piece. Anyone with a pen can fill one in.
The box and the dust bag
Fashionphile keeps the box and dust bag “for the next owner”. Neither appears in its list of what it examines, which is craftsmanship, stamping, stitching, engravings, hardware, date codes, materials and serial numbers.
Chanel’s repair policy, as described by LV Bagaholic, asks for proof of purchase and accepts an authenticity card or a dust bag in its place. If the house itself treats the card and the dust bag as interchangeable stand-ins for a receipt, neither is conclusive on its own.
For Fendi, The RealReal points out that the small fabric RFID pouch must contain an actual chip. Many fakes come with the pouch sewn in and empty.
The receipt
A receipt in a WhatsApp photo is worth nothing. There are commercial services selling Chanel receipt templates with the same header, store details and barcode as the real thing. A receipt is worth more when you can cross-check it against the piece. Model, colour, date and the hardware of that era all have to match what you are holding.
Louis Vuitton states in its own FAQ that its products are sold exclusively in its stores, on louisvuitton.com and on 24s.com. A receipt from anywhere else is not a Louis Vuitton receipt.
The chip
Since 2021, according to resale guides, Chanel (April 2021, the 21A collection) and Louis Vuitton (March 2021, per Xupes and Lollipuff) replaced stickers and date codes with an embedded chip. Prada is a founding member of the Aura Blockchain Consortium with LVMH and Cartier, formed in April 2021, and uses NFC tags hidden in interior labels or soles. Gucci is not part of that consortium.
Coco Approved documents a fake Chanel Vanity whose leather, hardware and stitching all passed inspection, and which was only caught at the chip. That makes the chip the hardest detail to copy today. None of the guides we consulted describes how a buyer would read that chip alone, so in practice it remains something a laboratory examines, not you.
The house’s own service record
This is one of the few papers that carries weight. According to LV Bagaholic’s guide, Chanel accepts only authentic pieces for repair. A service ticket in the name of that specific bag means someone at the house held it and accepted it.
A report from an outside laboratory
Entrupy compares high-resolution images of the piece against a database with millions of records. It does not work from a list of tells. It backs its certificate with a one-year financial guarantee for the documented purchase price. The same company acknowledges that today’s superfakes come out of the same factories with the same materials as the genuine article, and that they fool even experts.
Vestiaire Collective trains each authenticator for 750 hours and rejects about 8 percent of what it receives. Its own help page says that no authentication process is 100 percent accurate and that, very occasionally, a counterfeit gets through.
That is what makes a report worth something. A named third party, an examination of the physical piece, and financial responsibility if it is wrong.
What this means for pieces at Kove
Kove does not issue its own verdicts and has no laboratory. Some pieces carry a report from an outside specialist laboratory. When they do, the piece’s page says so and the document travels with the piece, in the laboratory’s name. When a piece has no document, the page has no document either. The report is not sent by message before delivery, because a report circulating loose is exactly what someone making a copy needs.
If you want a report on a specific piece, it is arranged with the outside laboratory and you receive the result exactly as issued. It can confirm the piece or fail to confirm it. The details are on Authenticity.
Checklist for a real listing
- The bag is Louis Vuitton, Fendi or Gucci and comes with an “authenticity card” (not Gucci’s Controllato card, which is a quality-control card). Count it against the bag.
- The seller offers the box and dust bag as proof. They are not. Ask what else there is.
- There is a receipt. Ask to see the whole thing and cross-check model, colour and date against the piece and against the hardware of that era.
- There is a chip or tag. Only a laboratory can read it and match it.
- There is a repair ticket from the house in the name of that piece. That does count.
- There is a report. Check that it comes from a named third party, that it describes this piece, and whether it carries a financial guarantee.
- There is none of the above. You can still request an outside report before you pay.
Where this applies in the catalogue: Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Gucci.
Sources
- https://koveluxury.com/autenticidad/
- https://www.fashionphile.com/blogs/academy/dissecting-fake-chanel
- https://www.fashionphile.com/pages/authenticity
- https://faq.vestiairecollective.com/hc/en-gb/articles/360006737757-Buyer-I-m-Not-Sure-if-My-Item-Is-Genuine
- https://faq.vestiairecollective.com/hc/en-gb/articles/16329420537745-Buyer-How-authentic-are-items-on-Vestiaire-Collective
- https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/inside-vestiaire-collectives-highly-confidential-authentication-hub/
- https://www.entrupy.com/luxury-authentication/
- https://www.entrupy.com/guarantee/luxury/
- https://sellyourbags.com/blog/gucci-serial-numbers-check/
- https://legitgrails.com/pages/prada-serial-number-checker
- https://lvbagaholic.com/blogs/lv_bagaholic/will-chanel-fix-my-bag-everything-you-need-to-know-about-chanel-repair
- https://eu.louisvuitton.com/eng-e1/faq/products/what-does-louis-vuitton-do-against-counterfeits
- https://realstyle.therealreal.com/authentic-fendi-logo-zucca-ff-bag/
- https://madisonavenuecouture.com/blogs/news/chanel-bags-switch-from-serial-stickers-to-microchips-in-2021
- https://www.xupes.com/blog/post/the-ultimate-guide-to-louis-vuitton-date-stamps-history-formats-and-authentication
- https://www.pradagroup.com/en/news-media/press-releases-documents/2021/21-04-20-aura-blockchain-consortium.html
- https://cocoapproved.com/blogs/style/real-fake-6