How to identify inherited antiques, one box at a time
Identifying inherited antiques comes down to two questions repeated a hundred times: what is this thing, and does it need an expert. Patina is being built to answer the first from a photo, with maker, era, origin and an honest confidence level, and to flag the pieces where the answer should come from a person instead.
Patina is not open yet, so anything on this page about what it does is what it is being built to do.
The boxes are in the hallway and nobody knows what any of it is
You did not choose this collection. Someone else spent forty years assembling it, and now there are twelve boxes in the hallway, a sideboard nobody has room for, and a shoebox of small silver things wrapped in newspaper from a decade you can still remember.
The questions arrive in a predictable order. Is it actually antique or just old? Junk or treasure? Is this worth anything? And underneath those, the one that actually blocks progress: what do I even call this, so I can look it up, list it, ask about it, or defend keeping it when a sibling wants the room cleared by the weekend.
The pieces that stall you are rarely the obvious ones. It is the plate with a mark you cannot read, the lamp base that could be brass or could be something better, the framed print that is signed but the signature is a scribble. You turn it over, you find four letters and a number, you type them into a search box, and you get modern reproductions for sale. Collectors say the same thing about general image search: it shows you things that look similar and are on sale today, not what the object in your hand actually is.
So the pile does not shrink. It gets moved to a different room.
One thing to say up front
Patina is not open yet. It is being built for exactly this moment, and everything below describes what it is being built to do when it opens rather than something you can install this afternoon. We would rather you knew that in the first thirty seconds than in the last paragraph.
What identifying inherited antiques actually involves
Identification and valuation are two different jobs, and confusing them is what makes an inherited estate feel impossible. Identification is naming: who made it, roughly when, and where. Valuation is what someone would pay for it today, which depends on condition, market and the particular buyer, and which belongs to an appraiser or an auction specialist. Patina is built to do the first and to refuse the second. We never put a dollar figure on your grandmother's things.
The three piles
Most people sorting an inherited house end up with the same three piles, whether or not they name them. Things you are keeping regardless. Things that are ordinary household goods and can be cleared. And a small middle pile: objects that might be significant, where clearing them would be a mistake and paying for an appraisal on all of them would cost more than the pile is likely to hold.
The whole difficulty is sorting that middle pile down to a shortlist. A professional appraisal is the right answer for a handful of objects and the wrong answer for ninety of them, and until something has a name, you cannot tell which is which.
Where the information usually hides
Before you photograph anything, look where makers actually sign. Undersides of ceramics and glass. The back of a frame and the edge of a canvas stretcher. Inside drawers, on drawer bottoms, along the back rail of case furniture. Clasps and inner rims on jewellery. Hallmarks on silver are often small and worn, and they are usually on the least decorative surface. Get the object into good daylight, wipe the dust off the mark, and keep it still. A photograph of a mark you can read is worth more than a photograph of the whole object. That part of the work is yours either way, and it is worth doing now, before any software exists to help.
How working through a boxful will go
- Set aside the things you already know
You know a modern kettle when you see one, and you may well know more about your family's pieces than any software does. Spend the scans on the objects that genuinely stop you, the unread mark and the unfamiliar shape. Patina is built as a second opinion, not a replacement for what you already recognise.
- Photograph the piece where it stands
Starting a scan will open your phone's camera, so you shoot the object in front of you rather than hunting through your gallery. Fill the frame with the object, or with the mark if the mark is the puzzle, and keep the light on your side rather than behind the piece.
- Read the plain-English result
The result screen will name a likely maker, an era and an origin, written in ordinary language rather than auction-catalogue shorthand. It carries a standing reminder that this is an AI-generated estimate rather than an expert appraisal, and it never shows a value, because that is not a judgement software should be making about your inheritance.
- Look at the confidence before you believe it
Every identification will come with a confidence level, and that level is the useful part when you are triaging a house. High confidence on a common pattern means you can move on. Low confidence means the photograph, the object or both are genuinely ambiguous, and you should treat the naming as a lead to check rather than a conclusion.
- Let the flag build your appraiser shortlist
When confidence falls below Patina's threshold, the result will carry an appraisal triage flag and a link to a vetted appraiser. That is how the middle pile becomes a shortlist: the objects Patina cannot settle are exactly the ones worth a professional's time. Referral links may be affiliate links, and we would rather tell you that than not.
- Use your history to keep the sorting straight
Your account will keep your last ten scans, which is usually enough to get through a session without re-photographing something you already looked at an hour ago. When a sibling asks what the blue jug turned out to be, the answer is still on your phone rather than in your memory.
Why this helps when the estate is yours to sort
Names arrive before decisions do
A clearance conversation goes differently when the objects have names. Even a provisional maker and era gives the family something concrete to discuss instead of a vague sense that something in the boxes might matter.
Honest confidence instead of a confident guess
Software that sounds sure about everything is useless for triage, because you cannot tell the easy calls from the hard ones. Patina is built to state how sure it is, and to say so plainly when it is not sure.
A shortlist for the appraiser, not a hallway
Appraisal is worth paying for on the few pieces where the answer is genuinely unclear. The confidence-gated flag exists to point at those pieces so you are not paying to be told about a 1990s biscuit barrel.
No number to fight over
Patina will never produce a dollar value, which means it cannot become the figure a relative quotes at you. Identification is our job, and valuation stays with the people qualified to do it.
Made for the room, not the reference library
Sorting happens standing up, in a dusty room, with limited time before the skip arrives. This is being built for that moment rather than for a desk and a shelf of pattern books.
Nothing here is a verdict
Every identification is an AI estimate and should not be the basis for selling, buying or discarding anything you care about. It is a starting point that tells you where to look next, which is what the pile in the hallway actually lacks.
What Patina will and will not tell you about an inherited piece
| What you get | What you do not get |
|---|---|
| A likely maker, era and origin from a photo | Any dollar or pound value, ever |
| A confidence level on every identification | A guarantee that the identification is correct |
| A triage flag and appraiser referral when confidence is low | A formal appraisal, certificate or authentication |
| Your last ten scans kept in your account | A full catalogue or inventory of the estate |
Where your photographs go
Sorting an inherited house means photographing someone's private possessions, so it is fair to ask what happens to the images before you ever take one.
Here is what Patina is built to store: your name, email address and a password hash so you can sign in, the photos you scan and their identification results so your history works, your subscription status with a Stripe customer reference, and clicks on appraiser referral links. Card details never touch our servers. Photos are processed by an AI model through Anthropic in order to identify the object. Everything is hosted on Amazon Web Services in the United States.
Photos and results are kept while your account exists. There is no self-serve deletion inside the app, so if you want the account and its images gone, write from your account email to the contact address on this site and we remove the account, its photos and its scan history within 30 days.
What it will cost to get through the boxes
Free
Free
The occasional finder or inheritance receiver who meets an unfamiliar object a few times a year and needs to see a real result before paying anything.
- Scans per month: 3
- Scan history: Last 10 scans
- Maker, era and origin from a photo
- Honest confidence level on every result
- Appraiser referral when a result needs an expert eye
- Scan history of your last 10 scans
Unlimited
$6.99 / month
The estate sale regular or serious thrift shopper who meets unfamiliar objects several times a month and wants to scan every one of them.
- Scans per month: Unlimited
- Scan history: Last 10 scans
- Dollar values: Not provided
- Unlimited scans every month
- Maker, era and origin from a photo
- Honest confidence level on every result
Questions
Can an app tell me whether something I inherited is valuable?
Patina will not, and by design cannot, tell you what a piece is worth. It identifies: a likely maker, era and origin, with a confidence level. Value depends on condition and market, and it belongs to an appraiser or an auction specialist. What Patina is built to do is narrow the pile down to the few objects where paying for that opinion makes sense.
What should I photograph first on an unfamiliar object?
The mark, if there is one. Look on undersides of ceramics and glass, inside drawers and along the back rails of furniture, on the back of frames, and on clasps and inner rims of jewellery. Clean the dust off, get daylight onto it, and hold the phone steady. If there is no mark at all, photograph the whole object plus its most distinctive detail.
Can I use photos I already took of the house before it was cleared?
Not as it is being built. Starting a scan opens your phone's camera, so Patina works with the object in front of you rather than with an existing photo library. If you are planning a clearance day, plan to scan as you sort.
How do I know whether a piece needs a real appraisal?
That is what the confidence-gated triage flag is for. When Patina's confidence in an identification falls below its threshold, the result carries a flag and a link to a vetted appraiser, because low confidence usually means the object is genuinely ambiguous. Those referral links may be affiliate links.
General image search just showed me modern reproductions. Why would this be different?
That is the complaint collectors make most often, and it comes from a tool designed to find visually similar things for sale. Patina is being built to answer a different question: who made this, roughly when, and where, expressed in plain English with a stated confidence level. It is still an AI estimate rather than an expert opinion, and the result screen says so every time.
Is it antique or just old?
Patina gives you an estimated era, which is the input that question needs, but it does not issue rulings on categories. Definitions of antique and vintage vary by trade and by country, so treat the era estimate as a starting point and check it against how the specific market you care about defines the terms.
Can I rely on the identification when deciding what to sell or throw away?
No. Identifications are AI-generated estimates and are not a basis for purchase, sale or disposal decisions. Use them to name things and to decide what deserves a professional look, and get a human expert involved before anything irreversible happens.
How many objects will I be able to scan in a day?
Patina is not open yet, so nothing is chargeable today. Either way, your account keeps your last ten scans so you can look back at what you found.