Minutes we will not sell

The rule

Minutes of mass-casualty events, disasters, atrocities and attacks are not sold in the Legendary set and are not priced above an ordinary minute. Where a minute is widely and specifically identified with such an event, we will not sell it at all.

Why we drew it there

There is a version of this product that curates the worst minutes in history, prices them highest because they are the most recognised, and calls that commemoration. We are not building that version. Charging a premium for the minute a building came down is not commemoration; it is a business making money out of the recognisability of other people's deaths, and no wording fixes it.

So the rule is not about taste. It is about who benefits. Nobody connected to those minutes gets anything from us selling them.

What this means in practice

• Pricing. The premium tier is computed from the shape of the minute — on the hour, midnight, a pattern in the digits — and from a short list of dates that are turnings and celebrations. No disaster date is on that list, and none will be added.
• Curation. The Legendary set contains minutes of the register itself and documented moments of arrival, invention and first light. It contains no catastrophes.
• Refusal. Where a minute is specifically and publicly identified with a mass-casualty event, we decline the claim and refund it. We would rather lose the sale and be able to explain ourselves.

What is still allowed, and deliberately so

Your own dead. The minute your father died, the minute the phone rang, the minute the machines were switched off — these are among the truest things this register holds, and refusing them would gut the product to avoid an awkward conversation.

The distinction is connection. A private grief written by the person who lived it is the point. A public catastrophe claimed by a stranger for its recognisability is not. When we cannot tell which one we are looking at, we ask.

Individual deaths of public figures

Not in the Legendary set, and not priced up. If someone with a genuine connection wants to record such a minute privately, we will look at it individually. A stranger claiming a famous death because it will get attention is exactly what this policy exists to refuse.

Editorial copy on historic minutes

Everything written in the Legendary gallery is factual and non-endorsing. It implies no affiliation with any institution, estate or event. It uses no third-party photographs, logos or footage — typography and public-domain material only — and anything sourced carries a citation. See the gallery.

If we get it wrong

This is a line drawn by people and it will occasionally be drawn in the wrong place. If you think a minute in the gallery should not be there, write to registry@ownminute.com. We will take it down while we think about it, rather than after.