The Tainted Liquidity Cliff

Identical headline valuation at first inspection · radically different realisable value once provenance is verified · the structural information-asymmetry loss between forensically pristine and tainted assets at the moment of sale.

Asset Class

Tier-1 Vintage Horology · Investment Grade

Risk Assessment

Provenance-Conditional Liquidity

Class 01 · Pristine

Forensically Pristine

Unbroken registry data · multi-vector forensic clearance · institutional CPO chain

Index Marker

Immediate Liquidity Floor

100%

Structural Information Asymmetry Spread

Liquidity Loss · Net

−85%

Pristine → Tainted

Class 02 · Tainted

Tainted Provenance

Unverified composite assembly · registry gaps · institutional documentation contested

Collapse to Sum-of-Parts

15%

Pristine asset · realisable

100%

Immediate clearance at headline reference valuation · the structural baseline of an unbroken chain of custody.

Tainted asset · realisable

15%

Composite assembly clears only at sum-of-parts value · liquidity collapses to component-by-component component value.

Information asymmetry loss

−85%

The structural spread between two assets that presented identically at first inspection · the cost of provenance failure.

At the moment of acquisition the two assets look identical · the same reference, the same headline valuation, the same auction-catalogue photography. At the moment of sale they are two different asset classes. The pristine asset clears immediately at its index price. The tainted asset clears only after forensic teardown re-prices it to the raw sum of parts. The 85 % spread is not a discount · it is the structural cost of failed provenance, settled at the speed of the next forensic file.

Source · Private-banking risk-assessment matrices · auction realised-price archives · Perezcope forensic register · grey-market clearance records · Watch Schools internal model · Watch Schools curriculum Module 02