PROVENANCE — I Built an Offline AI Antique Appraiser That Runs in a Basement with No Signal

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.

This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 2: Side Hustle https://dev.to/challenges/hacktoberfest-week2-2026-10-12 PROVENANCE is a private, fully-offline antique appraisal and listing writer for resellers who flip on eBay, Etsy, Depop, and Facebook Marketplace. You drop a photo of an item. It gives you back: Everything runs on your laptop. Nothing leaves the room. $0 per appraisal after setup. 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 . The 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. 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. bash git clone https://github.com/sohaibq914/HACKTOBER W2 cd HACKTOBER W2 .\start.ps1 Windows — installs deps, starts both servers, opens browser ./start.sh Linux / macOS