Condition, provenance, and measurements

Curio reads eleven optional metafields in the curio namespace. They are what turn a product page into a lot record: a stamped grade, a ruled measurement table, a typed provenance note.

None of them are required, and none of them can break your store. A block with no data renders nothing at all — not an empty frame, not a placeholder. You can set up two of them today and the rest next month.

Create the definitions#

Do this once. It takes about ten minutes.

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Settings → Custom data → Products.
2. Click Add definition.
3. Fill in three things:
   • Name — whatever you want to see in the admin, e.g. Condition grade.
   • Namespace and key — click Edit next to the auto-filled value and set it exactly as the table below shows, e.g. curio.condition_grade. This is the part that must match.
   • Type — as listed in the table. Leave List of values off for every one of these.
4. Save, and repeat for each row you want.

The four panels at the bottom are a convenience, not a requirement: those blocks can also take their content directly in the theme editor, or point at a page. See detail panels.

Fill them in#

On any product, scroll to the bottom of the product page in your admin and you will find a Metafields card with the definitions you created.

For more than a handful of products, use the bulk editor instead: on Products, tick the products you want, click Bulk edit, then Columns and add your metafield columns. You can then type down a column and paste from a spreadsheet.

Condition grade#

Whatever your grading language is, in your words. Curio never writes a grade for you and has no built-in scale.

A — Excellent

Keep it short: it is set in a stamped chip, and long text will wrap awkwardly. Two or three words is the sweet spot. Be consistent across products — the value is the consistency, which is also why the grading system section exists to publish your scale.

Measurements#

One Label: number per line, numbers in centimetres. Curio converts to inches itself and renders a cm/in toggle that works without JavaScript.

Chest: 54
Length: 71
Sleeve: 62
Shoulder: 45

• A line whose value is not a number is printed as-is, with no conversion — useful for Fits like: Medium.
• A line with no colon at all becomes a full-width note under the table.
• Inches are calculated as centimetres × 0.3937, rounded to one decimal place.

Provenance#

Rich text. Where it came from, when, from whom, in as many sentences as it deserves. This is the field that does the most work in building trust, and the one shoppers quote back to you.

curio.provenance_attribution is the single line that hangs beneath it:

— consigned, Osaka, 1998

Condition notes#

Multi-line text, one flaw per line. It renders as the “Condition report” panel, which is collapsed by default so an honest list of small faults does not shout over the product.

Faint mark on the left cuff, roughly 1cm
Two replaced buttons, matched
No holes, no odour

Lot number#

Curio numbers lots automatically — No. 001, No. 002 — counting down each grid on the page. Set curio.lot_number only when a product has a real number of its own, from your stock book or a consignor’s manifest. The theme will never invent one from an internal Shopify ID, because a fabricated number is worse than no number.

When they do not show up#

Work down this list; it is almost always the first item.

1. The key is wrong. curio.condition_grade, not curio.condition-grade or custom.condition_grade. Check it in Settings → Custom data → Products — the key is shown under the definition name and cannot be edited after saving. If it is wrong, delete the definition and create it again.
2. The type is wrong. A measurements field created as Single line text cannot hold multiple lines, so the table has nothing to lay out.
3. The value is empty on this product. Definitions are store-wide; values are per product.
4. The block is not on the product page. Check Product information in the theme editor and add the matching block. See the product page.
5. The definition’s storefront access is restricted. Definitions created through the admin are readable by the theme by default. If someone created yours through an app or the API, check its access settings.

Still nothing? Send us the store URL and the product URL and we will look.

A store with no metafields#

Worth saying plainly, because it decides how much of a hurry you need to be in: Curio was designed to look finished without any of this. With no metafields configured you get a flat, mono-and-grotesque minimal shop — lot numbers, price tags, and the ledger rules all still work, because they come from data Shopify already has.

What you lose is the resale argument: the grade, the measurements, the story. If you sell one-of-one items, that argument is why people buy from you rather than a marketplace. It is worth the ten minutes.