Stratum.black

Glossary · Provenance

Chain of custody

The unbroken sequence of owners and custodians of a specimen, each transfer documented (receipt, label, trade record, certificate).

The unbroken sequence of owners and custodians of a specimen, each transfer documented (receipt, label, trade record, certificate). A gap is where doubt lives.

Sources

Cite this article

Stratum Study. "Chain of custody" (Glossary). Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-16. https://stratum.black/study/glossary/chain-of-custody. Accessed 2026-09-20.

BibTeX · CSL-JSON

@misc{stratum-chain-of-custody,
  title        = {Chain of custody},
  author       = {{Stratum Study}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/study/glossary/chain-of-custody}},
  year         = {2026},
  note         = {Glossary article, Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-16; sources: stratum. Accessed 2026-09-20.}
}

Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.

Sources for this article: Stratum editorial (Stratum editorial). As of 2026-09-16; Study pack 2026.09. Written by Stratum in our own words; the works cited are where the science lives, and none of their text is reproduced here.

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