Hello, my name is Brian, the founder of CrowdAppraise. As an antique enthusiast and big fan of such shows as Antiques Roadshow and American Pickers, I became interested in developing a mobile app to help people more quickly and easily obtain appraisal values for items. Specifically I am building CrowdAppraise to help users price: · items before buying or selling on sites like eBay, Craigslist or Tias. · items before buying or selling at Live Auctions. · antiques, collectibles, or art when Buying, Selling or just out of curiosity. · items for Estate Sales, Garage Sales, or Yard sales. · original items that they have created, such as arts or crafts. · a new product before placing it on the market. · a new product idea before actually developing it. Please visit CrowdAppraise and read more about the app if you are interested in learning more. Also you can signup to be notified when we launch the app! I also would like to hear any feedback the community here may have about the idea. Thank you in advance! ~ Brian,
And here was I thinking someone had founded a really ironic website called 'Deleted' I have never had a high opinion of anything done by crowds, you don't get the best you just get the loudest. It's taken me about 25 years or more to get half an idea about what stuff is likely to sell for, and even then that omits glass, ceramics and much furniture. (Not to mention paintings, sculpture and textiles.) The main problem is determining just what stuff is in the first place. The type of people who might try this approach are liable to be young (mobile app users) and generally ignorant, and if they cannot specify exactly what they are looking at any appraisal will be worth the electrons it is made of. It is obvious from this picture what this spoon is. How would your crowd deal with it? The inability of people to take a decent closeup or useful pictures of anything would be a problem, those mobile users will take a blurry, badly lit picture of something and expect others to be able to say what it is. The biggest problem for your project seems to be GIGO.
Hi afantiques, We really appreciate your constructive feedback regarding CrowdAppraise. The algorithm that we are working on is going to take into consideration those in the crowd that do not perform up to standards. A subject matter expert designation will be applied to those profiles that are shown consistently to "know what they are talking about". This will be done via a rating system. More weight will be added to their input than other members. In addition, professional appraisers will be invited to join the app where they can charge a fee for an individual appraisal. Our goal is to get people on the app that are passionate and knowledgeable no matter what age they may be. The app will be designed to start a conversation about posted items. Users will have the option to vote as to how much they think its worth. Mobile phone cameras are getting better and better all the time. The Iphone 6 has an 8 megapixel camera which is incredible. The app will allow users to zoom in on photos, such as your spoon photo. The goal of the app is to get the conversation off the antiquated forums and into an easy to use app that everyone will enjoy. Thanks again for your feedback!
Interesting article about live crowd appraisals prior to an auction. https://mikebrandlyauctioneer.wordpress.com/2015/04/20/the-auction-crowd-appraisal/
The goal of the app is to get the conversation off the antiquated forums and into an easy to use app that everyone will enjoy. As an antiquated forum user myself, I can't say I know how to use any kind of application for a mobile phone, I do have one but it only makes phone calls and only 1 person has my phone number. I do not dispute your comments about the latest cameras, but the problem is that the users are generally rubbish. More pixels is not a solution, this just means you get bigger dark blurry pictures. Users will have the option to vote as to how much they think its worth. This seems about as much use as voting what sex the class hamster is. Where and when something is is as important as what it is in many cases. The Chinese will pay two or three times as much for old English brand name products like Dunhill and Aspray as the British will. Russians are mad for Imperial Russian stuff, Americans will pay more than Russians for Soviet era stuff, often by a mile. There was a period when the Malaysians were mad for American sunglasses, and similar freak markets variations abound. With the feedback aspects,and user appraisals, the whole thing sounds very much like an antiquated forum shoehorned into the latest miracle device for the sake of it. It simply does not seem all that novel in conception, just format. Best of luck with it anyway, but I do not think my primitive eyes and brain will be obsolete before the electricity is cut off and they start to rot away. Years of looking at user's pictures and descriptions on the boards leads me to believe the main problem will be identifiable input.
AF, I'm 110% with you. CrowdAppraise sounds interesting. Somewhat entrepreneurial. If serious, hopefully with the intent of having one helluvan IPO sometime down the line. Unfortunately I most likely won't be around to see it. In the meantime though, please keep me updated on the progress. As usual, I'm curious to the degree of being a PITA.
Brian, you still with us? Don't let my picture scare you. That was taken before your (grand)parents were born. Your idea of CrowdAppraise is actually an OK idea. But it's not going to work as most people would like it to. Put yourself in the position of wanting the value of an item you're looking at in an antique shop. Are you going to take a pic and put it on CrowdAppraise? YES? Then are you going to pay the amount 22 people just gave you? Or the average? Without knowing who those people are or what they may or may not really know about the item? What's the asking price? $12.50 or $1,250? Be honest here. 22 unknown people gave you their opinion. What are you going to do with it? There are plenty of people on this particular forum who amaze me with their knowledge and willingness to offer free advice. And I'm a newbie here. People whom I trust and will very happily follow their recommendations. Depending on the item, maybe after I've further researched. They know what they're talking about. They know the difference between BV and what today's market will bring. But that figure is not encouraged here. They might be misunderstood, advice misinterpreted, unknowingly harmed the newbie in an unexpected way. They offer hundreds of years of combined knowledge. And they gladly do it with kindness and restraint. Sorry, Brian. I will offer you one piece of advice. It is from someone who has been a licensed appraiser for 50 years. The kind who appears in court to back up what he stated and/or to settle a dispute. And the kind who's not going to give you a value after 5 minutes of looking at a picture on his smartphone. That advice is to never pay over 1 % of your weekly income because 10, 25, or 347 unknowns gave you their opinion of value. IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY. Instant gratification may sound good, but patience pays much better in the long run. You're not going to marry that redhead in the morning. The one you met two hours ago, just because 28 guys and gals in the bar said she was a terrific lady.
The goal of the app is to get the conversation off the antiquated forums and into an easy to use app that everyone will enjoy. A lofty goal indeed..... When you develop a platform where at least 10 recognized appraisers in the same field can respond to a question within 8 minutes from 8 AM to 8 PM.....I'll join & pay a monthly fee for that.......till then I'll muddle through the antiquated forums...& pick up a book !
Thank you all for the very useful information here. In fact I will take a lot of it into consideration. That is why I posted here. I want to hear from the people in this field that matter. Every opinion counts. If "the crowd" that is permitted to appraise items were actually vetted to be experts or professional appraisers, would everyone agree this app might be alot more useful? If so, are there any experts here that would be interested in joining "the expert crowd" and help appraise items?
You will have ready market til they run out of money I see em come and go regularly They saw a 'reality' show Easy money buying and selling A phone won't be replacing brains for a while yet
