No deal in sight

What are these, and do I have them?

Not every stack comes with an offer attached. Sometimes I'm just digging: a flea market long box, a shop's unsorted back bin, the shortbox a friend hauls out of a closet because “you're the comics guy.” I come up with a small pile of books that interest me, and they interest me in two different ways. Some I half-recognize, and the honest answer to “do I already have this?” is that I genuinely don't know. Others I've never seen before in my life, and that is exactly why they're in the pile.

Evaluate a stack turns out to be the research desk for both. I photograph the pile, one tap per book, and the AI works out what each one actually is: title, issue, printing, the facts I'd otherwise be guessing at or hunting through a price guide for. For the half-remembered books, the ownership check answers instantly from my own inventory: yes, I have this one, in this condition; or I have the issue but not this printing; or it's the hole in the run I thought it might be. For the mystery books, the identification itself is the payoff. Ten minutes ago I didn't know this book existed; now I know exactly what it is, and if I'm curious what the market thinks of it, one Ballpark pass prices the whole pile at once.

And because it's an evaluation, none of this touches my collection. The books sit in their own holding area while I learn about them. If I walk away, one tap clears the whole thing and no record pretends I ever owned them. If a couple of them come home with me, those are already photographed and identified, and one tap makes them mine.

Behind it: identification spends a credit per book, so you scan the books you pulled, not the whole box. The do-I-own-it lookup is local and free, answering from the inventory on your phone with printings and conditions distinguished. Ballpark is optional and priced by the batch. Evaluations are disposable by design: nothing enters your collection until you say it does.