A security system for quantitatively verifying a condition of items in a special collections inventory includes a scale in connection with an index of special collection items. Every item in the index has a unique weight within a collection. The scale takes a current weight measurement of a special collections item and automatically reports the current weight measurement to the computing device hosting the index. Using the current weight measurement, the index is searched for a given item by comparing the current weight measurement with a set of indexed reference weights. In response to a match being detected between the current weight measurement and a reference weight among the set of indexed reference weights, a physical condition of the given item—corresponding with the reference weight—is verified as being intact. In response to no match being detected between the current weight measurement and the set of indexed reference weights, an alarm event triggers indicating that the special collections item has been tampered with.