Confidential permanently: who you are, including your name and address; the photographs and information you send me before I deliver your report (or, if there is no report, before the engagement ends); and the fact that you engaged me at all — unless you, your legal personal representative, or your successor in title if you are a company or institution, give me express written permission otherwise. I am also permanently barred from connecting you, or any other identified person, with any identified artwork, including by process of elimination. I may one day say that I have examined a particular artwork as part of an Art Review, but never in a way that could identify you. Your photographs stay yours.

Confidential for five (5) years: the contents of your report, from the date I deliver it to you. In that time, nothing in it goes into another client's report on the same artwork.

Not confidential: the artwork itself — its existence, attribution, history and the other facts about it, and where it is kept (unless you own it and tell me, which I'd rather you didn't: I don't need to know). Nor are artworks I have already analysed independently: those on the Schedule of Prior Analysis, those referenced in my picture book, and those covered on my YouTube channel or my other public channels. If yours is one, I'll decline and refund you in full (at the Art Review stage, a deduction for hours already worked is possible only in the narrow cases in clause B9) unless you tell me in writing that you want to go ahead anyway — in which case I'm free to publish about the artwork, but my promises not to deal in it still apply. Every artwork on the Schedule has already been researched extensively, and if you go ahead with any of these artworks, your report will contain only what I find that is new — nothing I had already found before you paid the Quotation Fee. Before you decide, I'll tell you roughly how much examination I've already done on it, and that a new review may find nothing new. So please check the Schedule before you pay. Nothing I publish after you pay the Quotation Fee can turn your own artwork into one of these (clause B9).

How to keep it confidential. Confidentiality starts only when you pay the Quotation Fee. I then email you personally from my own address, and you send your photos and everything else about your artwork only to that address, by replying to it. The contact form and email@hunchtrail.com are not confidential. Because the payment button only works for clients in the six places I serve, this confidential route is designed only for them.

The exceptions. I may disclose confidential information with your prior written permission; where a law, a court or a regulator compels me; to my own legal, accounting or insurance advisers, who must keep it confidential; and so far as necessary to bring or defend a claim between us. Nor does confidentiality cover information that is already public through no fault of mine, that I can show by dated records I already held, that I developed independently of anything you gave me, or that I lawfully received from someone who owed no duty of confidence. I must keep your information secure, and tell you promptly if anything is lost, stolen or accessed without authority. The full wording is in clause B13 of the Terms — please read it before you pay.

Artworks I have already reviewed for someone else. I won't review an artwork I reviewed for another client within the previous five years, because a second report would cover the same ground while the first is still confidential. If yours is one, I'll decline under ground (d) of clause B12 — which also covers legal and other reasons — refund everything you've paid, and say nothing more (clause B30). What I find for one client never goes into another client's report on the same artwork until the first client's report has passed its five years of confidentiality.

Absolutely not. For five (5) years from the time you pay the Quotation Fee, I personally will not pursue any transaction involving your artwork, and I will not publish any finding, image or analysis about it that came out of your review or the material you sent me — not in a video, an article, a book, or anywhere else. Paying the Quotation Fee is enough: you don't have to go on to commission the review. That promise is given by me personally and binds me personally, and it survives the end of any engagement. Your dated Quotation Fee receipt serves as proof of your prior claim. This is why I don't begin any discussion with a prospective client, or ask which artwork it is, until after the Quotation Fee is paid.

When it ends early, and when it doesn't. It ends early only if the Quotation Fee is refunded to you for a reason on your side — you cancel or change your mind (unless that's because of something I did or failed to do), a confirmation you gave turns out to be untrue (for example, you're in Quebec, you're a consumer in Germany or the Netherlands, or a sanctions check returns a match), or you act abusively or in bad faith — or if your artwork is one I had already analysed independently and the engagement ends for that reason (see the question above). If you choose to go ahead with such an artwork anyway, I'm free to publish about it, but my promise not to deal in it keeps running for the full five years. It does not end if you simply decide not to go ahead after seeing the quote, or don't pay within 30 days of signing the agreement: it keeps running for the full five years, although after sixty (60) days I may accept another client's instructions for that artwork. And if I decline or end the engagement for a reason of my own — for example, because I don't have capacity — it keeps running for the full five years whether or not I refund you, and I will never publish anything derived from the material you sent me. What never lapses is your side of it: your identity, your address and the photographs you sent me before the engagement ended stay confidential permanently, and I am permanently barred from connecting you — or any other identified person — to any identified artwork unless and until you, your legal personal representative, or your successor in title if you are a company or institution, give me express written permission otherwise. The exact wording is in clauses B13, B14 and B32 of the Terms.

Yes. The service is offered only to clients in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada excluding Quebec, and Australia. In Germany and the Netherlands it is available to business clients only, so if you are buying for yourself there rather than for a trade or profession, I cannot accept the engagement on any terms. I do not market to, solicit or accept standard engagements from anywhere else at this time. You are welcome to send a request through the contact form, or to email email@hunchtrail.com, for a bespoke agreement from outside these countries, where any such engagement would be on separately negotiated terms. Neither route is confidential, and no confidentiality applies to anything sent that way, so please don't identify any artwork. This is most likely to work out when you are a business client intending to use the service for business purposes, for which you must provide your relevant business registration number, or your VAT number.

I don't offer this service to anyone resident or established in Quebec (Canada) due to French language obligations that arise there. It applies to everyone resident or established in Quebec on identical terms, whatever their language, nationality, or ethnic or national origin, and it has no effect on anyone outside Quebec. The rest of Canada is unaffected, and a French-speaking client anywhere else is welcome on exactly the same terms as everyone else, on the understanding that the service itself is delivered entirely in English. Clause B1 of the Terms addresses this.

If you're in Quebec and somehow pay the US$249 Quotation Fee anyway, I'll refund it in full — no deduction — and I'll leave it there. If it has gone further than that and I've already started the Art Review itself before either of us realises, I refund the Art Review fee less the hours actually worked at the rate you'd already agreed, and I give you my time record with it. Tell me early and there is nothing to deduct. Clause B1 of the Terms sets this out.

I do check your name, and the name of whoever is paying, against the Australian Government's DFAT Consolidated List, the United States OFAC Specially Designated Nationals list (and, where the dealing warrants it, the OFAC Sectoral Sanctions Identifications list), the UK OFSI consolidated list, and the EU consolidated list — promptly after the Quotation Fee is paid and before any work begins, and again before accepting an engagement or the Service Fee. A small number of sectoral and region-specific measures exist, and if one applies, I'll inform you and refund your fee in full.

The contract is governed by the law of New South Wales, Australia. If you are a consumer somewhere else — the USA, the UK, Canada or Australia — that doesn't take away the consumer protections you have at home, and it doesn't stop you bringing a claim in your own courts. Business clients, including all clients in Germany and the Netherlands, are on a different track: disputes go to arbitration seated in Sydney under the ACICA Rules. That arbitration agreement comes into existence only when a business client separately and expressly agrees to it in writing, by initialling the arbitration box in the Art Review Services Agreement before signing. Until that happens, there is no arbitration agreement and the courts of New South Wales apply as normal. No consumer is ever required to arbitrate. See clause B31.

Yes, in a number of situations, all set out in clause B4 of the Terms — that clause is the complete list, and it governs. In summary: if I decline to quote or decline the job on any of the grounds listed there — including if, after you've paid but before I've quoted, you tell me in writing about a risk of unusually high consequential loss that I'm not willing to accept; if your artwork turns out to be one I have already analysed — on the Schedule of Prior Analysis, in my picture book, or covered on my YouTube channel or other public channels — and you'd rather not go ahead without the usual confidentiality, or on the basis that your report will contain only new findings; if I can't lawfully deal with you (refunded where the law allows — clause B11); if I don't get a quote to you within ten business days of receiving enough material to price the work (or of the later date in clause B5); if you change your mind within 14 days and haven't yet sent me anything about the artwork; if you turn out to have been in Quebec when you paid; if I decline because I have already carried out an Art Review of the same artwork for another client (clause B30); or if you are a consumer resident or established in Germany or the Netherlands, where I supply business clients only. In each case you get the whole US$249 back.

Consumers in the UK have a separate statutory right to cancel within 14 days without giving any reason, whether or not one of the above applies. If you cancel the Quotation before I have sent you the quote, you get the whole US$249 back, even if you asked me to start early; if you asked me to start early and acknowledged that the right ends once the quote is sent, it ends then. For the Art Review itself, cancelling after an early start means paying only for the hours actually worked. Consumers in Canada have cancellation rights under provincial law, described in clause B26. Germany and the Netherlands are business-only, so no consumer cancellation right arises there.

What it doesn't cover is simply deciding not to proceed once you've seen the quote, or the quoted number being higher than you'd hoped. Pricing your piece is real work and it gets done either way. Nothing here limits any right you have under the Australian Consumer Law or the consumer law of your own country. Clause B4 of the Terms sets this out in full.

You pay the Quotation Fee by card through Stripe. Stripe decides which cards and payment methods it accepts in your country. If you go ahead with the full Art Review after receiving your quote, you'll pay by telegraphic transfer / international bank transfer to my Australian bank account — but only after you've returned a signed agreement and I've sent you a countersigned copy. All fees are quoted in US dollars and each quoted figure is the total amount payable. I am not currently registered for GST, so no GST is charged on any fee, wherever you are. If I become registered, the price won't change, but will include GST for Australian clients, while clients outside Australia will be unaffected. Bank charges, intermediary bank fees and currency conversion costs are borne by you, and the quoted amount needs to reach the account in full, so please instruct your bank accordingly. Stripe may show and charge the US$249 in your own currency; the rate and any conversion fee are set by Stripe or your card issuer, not by me, so the amount debited can differ slightly from US$249.

When you pay the Quotation Fee, you'll provide your email address and a telephone number on the Stripe payment form. Within two business days I'll email you personally from my own address. Reply only to that address — it's the only confidential channel, so send your photos and everything else there, never through the contact form or to email@hunchtrail.com. You'll send digital photos of the piece (several angles for sculpture) and some background details, so I can prepare an accurate quote. Please don't tell me where the artwork is kept — I don't need to know. If my email hasn't arrived within two business days, check your spam folder. If it isn't there, please give me three more business days in case I've been delayed. If you still haven't heard from me five business days after paying, email email@hunchtrail.com with just your Stripe receipt number — not your name, and nothing about the artwork. You can send that from any email address: I'll reply from my own address to the email address you gave at the Stripe checkout. I claim no rights in anything you send; I only use it to perform the analysis. Please don't send identity documents or photographs of yourself — I don't need them and won't keep them. Within 30 days of delivering your report, or of the engagement otherwise ending, I delete my working copies of your images and notes. Two archival copies are kept, in confidence and for nothing else: the emails of your engagement, with their attachments, in my mailbox; and a copy on my encrypted offsite backup drive. I keep both indefinitely, for as long as my permanent confidentiality duties to you last, because I may need to prove what you did and did not send me (clause B15).

Not for the US$249 Quotation Fee — paying it at the Stripe checkout is where you accept the terms, which are linked there. For the Art Review itself there is a full Art Review Services Agreement, which I send you if you accept the quote. It names the piece, the hourly rate, the number of examination hours, the fee and the timetable, and it ends with a table of acknowledgements you initial box by box — confirming, among other things, that you understand you are buying the search for hidden details rather than any guarantee of finding any, that I hold no formal qualifications, that my method is unproven, and that I carry no professional indemnity insurance. You print the agreement, complete it, initial it, sign it, scan every page, and reply to my email with the scan. I countersign and send it back. Only then do you pay. At these amounts, it's in both our interests to have the specifics written down and signed rather than inferred from a payment.

I keep the copyright, because the report is the output of my own method and I need to be able to stop other people repackaging and selling it. Once you've paid in full, you get a permanent, irrevocable licence to use the report as a private aid to your own decisions about the artwork: keep and copy it for your own records; show it in full to a valuer, appraiser, authenticator, conservator or other art professional so they can form their own view; give it to your lawyer, accountant, tax adviser or executor; or put it before a court.

What you can't do with it. The report is for your own private decisions — including whether to buy, sell, keep or insure the artwork, alongside your own independent advice — not for your dealings with anyone else. It isn't for use in a sale, a purchase, a loan or an insurance claim. So don't give it, or any part of it, to an insurer, a lender, or someone you're negotiating to buy the artwork from or sell it to, and don't put it in a catalogue, listing, provenance file, or insurance or loan application — I'm not part of the art trade, and a report is not a valuation or an authentication (clause B32). Whenever you show it to anyone, show all of it, with its notices intact — never an extract — and don't sell or licence it as a product in its own right. Clause B15 of the Terms has the exact wording. I claim no rights in anything you send me — your photos, your background notes.

You can always tell people what you can see. When my report finds something, it also shows you how to see it for yourself. You're free to tell or show anyone you like, in your own words — pointing it out on the artwork, or on your own photo of it — what you yourself can see. What you say is your own observation, made on your own responsibility. Just don't pass the report itself, or any part of it, around for the uses above, don't use my name or the name of the service to help market or sell an artwork, and don't suggest that I've endorsed what you say, valued or authenticated the artwork, or taken part in any deal (clause B32).

No one but you may rely on the report, and I accept no duty to anyone you show it to — see “Addressee only” under Limitations on Assurances.

Religious art is my preferred genre, and where I do my best work. It's the subject matter I find most engaging, and where I feel I am most likely to correctly identify intentional concealment by the artist.

No. I am not a licensed, accredited or certified art valuer, appraiser or authenticator, and I hold no formal qualification in art history, connoisseurship, forensic art analysis or valuation. What I publish on this website about an artwork's attribution, authenticity or value is my personal opinion, for educational and entertainment purposes only; an Art Review report is my personal opinion for your own private consideration — clues to take to a qualified professional, not a substitute for one. See Limitations on Assurances.

If legitimacy arises from a consensus of individuals who are recognised as experts within a field, I don’t think you can. My techniques are not public, and nor is most of my research. They are proprietary. It is my claim that they represent innovation in a field that has traditionally tended to ignore findings borne out of pareidolia. As a result, my methods are not part of the body of recognised, peer-reviewed scientific literature. This means that there are no formal qualifications to train anyone to perform the particular kind of technical research services I am offering. What makes it particularly hard to absorb into the scientific literature is the inherent subjectivity involved when dealing with the level of the human perceptual system where pareidolia operates. There is a real possibility that no widespread scientific consensus ever forms around these techniques. Since most people equate a consensus of experts to ‘the truth’, you might never get the consensus you require to feel confident that you have the truth. But the scientific method was designed precisely to stand up to even the most unanimous agreement of recognised experts in any field. And the scientific method is ultimately performed by individuals.

No. I do not provide concrete opinions on attribution and authentication because I am not formally qualified, licensed, accredited or certified to do so. I use proprietary analytical methods to surface hidden details in an artwork. If other works attributed to the same artist contain similar such details, the similarities between the hidden details in such works could form the basis of an argument for attribution and authentication. You can then take such information to a qualified, licensed or certified professional to perform formal assessments, such as attributions, authentications, or valuations. I do not provide any actual authentications or attributions. I only provide the investigative service that has the potential to inform such processes.

No, I do not. I only attempt to uncover any details that might have been concealed using pareidolia. While these could have an effect on the amount of interest in a piece of art, I make no claim about what effect, if any, that has on the demand for, or the value of a piece of art — see clause B7 of the Terms. Valuations and appraisals must be performed by qualified, licensed, accredited, and/or certified art professionals.

No. I offer no guarantees or assurances in regards to the effects of an Art Review on the valuations of any artwork.

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The book itself — same ISBN, same edition, same content. The only difference is cosmetic condition: a Factory Seconds copy is new stock affected by one or more minor cosmetic defects, sold at a reduced price because of that. See clause C5A of the Terms.

Cosmetic ones: ink smears or smudges on interior pages, minor binding defects, warped or skewed covers, creased or folded pages, or other similarly minor defects. Clause C5A of the Terms sets this out in full, and it's what governs — this FAQ is a summary of it, not a substitute for it.

No. It's new stock that has never been sold or owned by anyone else — the reduced price is for the cosmetic condition described above, not for prior use. See clause C5A.

Yes, for anything beyond the cosmetic defect types disclosed above — those specific defects are disclosed to you before you pay, so they're not something you can make a warranty claim about, and on their own they don't mean the copy fails to meet the consumer guarantee of acceptable quality. A different kind of defect (missing, duplicated, misprinted or out-of-order pages, mould damage, a binding failure beyond ordinary warping, or a defect more serious than what was disclosed) is still covered in full, the same as any other copy. See clause C5A, which narrows clause C12 only in this specific way, and clause C14 for the consumer guarantee itself.

Far fewer than standard copies — I only set aside stock affected by a defect of the kind described above, and I don't state the exact number since it changes as stock is sold. When they're gone, they're gone until more turn up. See clause C5A.