Machine assisted visual grading of rare collectibles over the Internet

Accurately identifying, grading and then determining the authenticity of rare collectible items such as coins, stamps, cards, comic books and artwork is a subjective non-automated process conducted by appraisers or graders. Appraisers and graders are usually human experts in their respective fields that draw on large established pools of domain knowledge, opinions of other experts in their field and make comprehensive comparisons to other ‘works’ in the field to assist them in arriving at their findings. As with many professions the credentials for a person establishing himself or herself as ‘an expert’ can range from being non-existent to possessing a long list of impressive industry certifications.