Comment by chdaniel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chdaniel | Hacker News Reader

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I'm glad too and grateful for the second chance on the article!

> I just have a difficult time seeing how it could be cost-effective, without being eye-wateringly expensive.

We write the guides first, which 'earns' us the 'audacity' to claim we know how to authenticate. I thought of the academic world so as to prove the expertise (I'm the complete opposite of an academic)

* We write public guides (see: https://legitcheck.app/explore-the-library/) - we have about 1m words written on the subject

* People are free to contest it. If we're wrong, we'll correct

* The more other people link to our guides, the more we get... credentials, I guess?

> you can't have a fashion purse expert determining whether an "antique" firearm (where forgery is a big problem)

We don't really get that far, into firearms and the such. Currently we do sneakers, clothing, watches, bags and some collectibles (e.g. Pokemon Cards)

> I'd assume the biggest value would be to contract with auction houses or appraisers, where the workflow would be familiar

We've worked occasionally with some (e.g. authenticated a pair of $20,000 Jordans: https://legitcheck.app/certificate-of-authenticity/property-...

But mostly B2C, so it's a consumer-focuseed service

> But I guess if it's really just sending links to Amazon listings

The products we're authenticating are mostly 'asset products', so items that are $300+, most of the time sold-out, have some resale value over retail OR retain more of their retail value than usual items (think: Chanel items)

So the value is in the content of the guides. How do you write these? Do you get input from the manufacturers or other experts?

Fakes can be very convincing and genuine manufacturing processes can be very variable.

There is a great deal of information already available in their main lines of business with items of high volume, popularity, and resell value. A great example of all three would be the original set of collaborative releases between Nike and Off-White, called "The Ten." Many people have bought authentic pairs, and many, quite a few knowingly, have bought fakes. There is a large pool of information on the variability of both authentic and fake items. Often, experts can determine which sellers have factory sources in common, because the factories frequently do not sell directly to consumers.

People who know where this information exists, since it is frequently in a few different places, could read as much as possible and compile it into guides. My guess is that's what they have done, since it can be difficult to be an expert on everything. The bulk of their business probably also has to do with a small subset of the full market. I doubt they see many requests to authenticate, say, a pair of Carol Christian Poell drip sneakers, because they are low in volume and overall popularity. And sometimes the best source of information is rep makers and resellers, especially with pieces that are difficult to duplicate.

Fakes can be convincing, but they're frequently sorted into a couple tiers, and in some cases, fakes can only be spotted with a detailed examination of areas where the fakes are most likely to deviate from the originals. There is a fuzzy threshold for quality that is determined by the ability to identify these differences while someone is wearing the fake item.

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