Wondrous item, rare
As an action you can seal a document with wax and this matrix. While that seal is whole, the document cannot be altered by any means short of breaking the seal: fresh ink laid upon it will not dry, a scraped word stands again by morning, and a leaf cut out is found back in its place with the cut closed. A spell of 4th level or lower that would alter, erase, forge, or restore the document fails, and the caster knows that it failed and why.
While you hold the matrix, or have held it and are within 1 mile of a seal made with it, you know whether that seal is whole or broken, and you know the hour at which it was broken. You do not know by whom.
An impression from this matrix cannot be counterfeited by hand, by punch, or by any engraver's work. The offices of this city receive it without enquiry, and have done so for twenty-six years.
A cast taken from the face in plaster or fine sand yields a working matrix. It carries every property above save one: whoever holds a cast cannot tell whether a seal made with it is whole or broken, and gets no hour and no warning. A cast is told from the original in the hand in one way only, and always in that way — where the mould parted, the rim carries a burr.
A seal set with a cast, over a seal that was broken, is whole for every purpose an office of this city recognises. It is not whole to attest (see lot 57).
Source: Provenance — The Quist Sale