{"slug": "provenance-i-built-an-offline-ai-antique-appraiser-that-runs-in-a-basement-with", "title": "PROVENANCE — I Built an Offline AI Antique Appraiser That Runs in a Basement with No Signal", "summary": "A developer built PROVENANCE, a fully offline antique appraisal and listing-writer app that runs locally on a laptop with no network connection. The tool takes a photo of an item and returns an appraisal and marketplace listing copy, targeting high-volume resellers who pay $20–$50/month for cloud listing tools; it is offered as a $29 one-time license or $9/month for model updates. The project includes a mock mode that activates automatically when Ollama is not installed, letting users evaluate the full UI without setup.", "body_md": "*This is a submission for the [Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 2: Side Hustle](https://dev.to/challenges/hacktoberfest-week2-2026-10-12)*\n\n**PROVENANCE** is a private, fully-offline antique appraisal and listing writer for resellers who flip on eBay, Etsy, Depop, and Facebook Marketplace.\n\nYou drop a photo of an item. It gives you back:\n\nEverything runs on your laptop. Nothing leaves the room. $0 per appraisal after setup.\n\n**Who would pay for it?** Serious resellers — people doing 50–200+ items a month. They're already paying cloud listing tools $20–$50/month. PROVENANCE replaces that with a $29 one-time license (or $9/month for model updates). At 50 items/month, it pays back in under two months. At 200 items/month, the savings are $80–$100/month, *forever*.\n\nThe unsolved problem: estate sales happen in basements with no Wi-Fi. Purchase costs and sourcing locations are competitive intelligence — resellers don't want them on a server. And cloud listing tools charge per-item, which compounds at volume.\n\n**Try it with zero setup:** If Ollama is not installed, MOCK MODE activates automatically — the full UI runs with realistic canned responses so you can evaluate the product before installing anything.\n\n```\nbash\ngit clone https://github.com/sohaibq914/HACKTOBER_W2\ncd HACKTOBER_W2\n.\\start.ps1   # Windows — installs deps, starts both servers, opens browser\n./start.sh    # Linux / macOS\n```\n\n", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/provenance-i-built-an-offline-ai-antique-appraiser-that-runs-in-a-basement-with", "canonical_source": "https://dev.to/sohaibtausif141/provenance-i-built-an-offline-ai-antique-appraiser-that-runs-in-a-basement-with-no-signal-5lj", "published_at": "2026-10-18 15:09:13+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-18 15:16:53.861686+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-tools", "ai-products", "generative-ai", "large-language-models"], "entities": ["PROVENANCE", "Ollama", "eBay", "Etsy", "Depop", "Facebook Marketplace", "GitHub"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/provenance-i-built-an-offline-ai-antique-appraiser-that-runs-in-a-basement-with", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/provenance-i-built-an-offline-ai-antique-appraiser-that-runs-in-a-basement-with.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/provenance-i-built-an-offline-ai-antique-appraiser-that-runs-in-a-basement-with.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/provenance-i-built-an-offline-ai-antique-appraiser-that-runs-in-a-basement-with.jsonld"}}