Tangiblia™
ReferenceCataloging the Collectible™The Collector's Cabinet
Reference · Definitions
Every collectible possibility in every line we catalog has one address, and the address is built the same way everywhere. Once you can read one, you can read all of them — and the address itself is the page: SW1 lives at tangiblia.com/figures/sw1/.
Three slots, always in this order: the item, the issue form in brackets, and the subvariant. The example reads: item 1 of the Star Wars line, in its 12-Back A carded form, in the subvariant registered a1. Nothing else ever enters an address, in any line.
A figure is addressed by a pure number — the line's letters bound straight onto the digits, no dash. SW1 is Luke Skywalker; SW10 is the Jawa. An unmarked number means the line's reference form of that figure. A decimal means production itself changed inside the item's run: SW10.1 is the Jawa after Kenner replaced the vinyl cape with a cloth robe — same figure, same product, the making of it changed. A number, once minted, is never reused and never withdrawn.
Everything that is not the figure itself hangs off a dash, under a short code that says what kind of thing it is. The codes are the same in every line:
| SW-a59 | a — accessory. The double-telescoping lightsaber. |
| SW-cb1 | cb — cardback, cataloged as a reference object in its own right, because one cardback serves many figures. |
| SW-v21 | v — vehicle. The Tatooine Skiff. |
| SW-ps1 | ps — playset. |
| SW-c1 | c — creature. |
| SW-s1 | s — set: gift sets, multi-packs, costume sets. |
| SW-d1 | d — document: certificates, instructions, catalogs, inserts. SW-d1 is the Early Bird Certificate. |
| SW-ad1 | ad — advertisement. Every ad is a dated record under its line, so each line's marketing history is part of the catalog. |
| SW-M2 | m — mail-away. SW-M2 is the Early Bird Kit. |
A boxed vehicle or playset does not get its own code — its box belongs to one item and rides as that item's packaging record. A cardback earns cb because it is shared across a whole wave of figures.
The bracket names the issue form in the line's own collector language — [12-back-a], [loose], [sw-m2] — because collectors already think in those words, and we do not invent tradition where one exists. Where a line has no tradition, the bracket uses plain description. Silence after the bracket means the base form. A distribution mark qualifies inside the bracket: the same card sold in Japan with a Takara sticker is [12-back-b takara].
A subvariant is a unique collection of attributes — a different hair colour, a different saber, a different cape. The short label after the bracket is a nickname for an attribute set that recurs often enough to earn one: a letter when the finish differs (SW1 a, dark brown hair), a numbered label for a found-with bundle (SW1 a1, the figure with the double-telescoping saber). A combination nobody has registered yet is not an error — it is written out by its attributes until it recurs and earns its label.
In an address, v means vehicle, always. A collector version number — Snake Eyes (V2) — is a descriptor that lives in the figure's name, in parentheses, and never enters an address. Each ARAH version is a separate item with its own pure number: new sculpt, new product number, new release.
An address names a kind, never a copy. Condition, grade, provenance, and price belong to individual records and are never written into an address. Two collectors can own the same address in wildly different condition; the address stays the same, the records differ.
Observation — one dated, completed sale, recorded as found. Catalogs here store observations, never a computed "value." Verified — the sale was checked at its source. Probable — the sale is recorded with the reason it could not be fully checked. Asking prices are never recorded; only sales. Reproductions are recorded openly, labeled, and priced in their own lane, never blended with originals.