Many kinds of wealth transfers -- one-way and mutual, voluntary and coerced -- face transaction costs. In voluntary trades both parties gain; a truly free gift is usually an act of kin altruism. These transactions create value for one or both parties as much as the physical act of making something.

To be useful as a general-purpose store of wealth and means of wealth transfer, a collectible had to be embedded in at least one institution with a closed-loop cycle, so that the cost of discovering and/or manufacturing the object was amortized over multiple transactions. Furthermore, a collectible was not just any kind of beautiful decorative object. It had to have certain functional properties, such as the security of being wearable on the person, compactness for hiding or burial, and unforgeable costliness. That costliness must have been verifiable by the recipient of the transfer -- using many of the same skills that collectors use to appraise collectibles today.