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Idea
Povilas S Apr 29, 2022
A platform to sell and buy items made at a specific time in the past to use them for sentimental (or other) purposes
Image credit: https://img.lovepik.com/photo/50141/4441.jpg_wh860.jpg
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An eBay-like platform where anyone can advertise and sell their belongings, except that the emphasis is placed on and value derived from the exact age of those items.
The idea was inspired by this contribution by Michaela D and this idea by Darko Savic.
Why?
- Find an item (e.g. a photograph of your hometown) that was made on the day you were born.
- Find a piece of jewelry that was made on the day you met your girlfriend to give it as a gift for your meeting anniversary.
- You're filming a movie that pictures a specific historical date, find original newspapers and other items that were made on that exact day or at least month or year, to make the feel of the movie more authentic, etc.
- People can sell items that don't have much (if any) sentimental value to them but will have a lot of it to someone else. Any date/time could be meaningful to a particular person for a variety of reasons.
How it works:
I imagine the platform could function in two ways, first - it would simply be an online place for sell-buy advertisements, except in addition to the type of the item you are searching for you'd also filter by the time the item was made (either very precise (day, hour, minute, second), or approximate (week, month, year, decade)). The seller would define the initial price and negotiate it with the buyer. The buyers could also post advertisements of what they are looking for and how much they are willing to pay for the item they are looking for. The platform would serve as a mere intermediary.
The second option - the platform could buy various "timestamped" items from people, it could offer its own prices for specific items made at specific times. The moderators or the algorithms would determine the costs depending on the demand for specific times/dates and specific items from the buyer's side. This would work a bit like the stock market. The buyers would choose from the pool of items initially bought by the platform. The prices would fluctuate depending on the availability and demand for certain items.
The two options could, possibly, be combined. I perhaps borrowed J. Nikola's idea here, but it fits this context very well.
Determining the age of the item:
This is the main issue. Some items will have timestamps on them, e.g. the manufacturing date of the product, printed on it, the date and time printed on a back of a physical, paper picture, etc. But for some the only timestamp will be the owner's memory, e.g. a person might remember the day a picture was made because he/she made it on that day, or they have different means to trace back the time – notes, associations, asking others, etc., and buyers might not trust that. This would influence the price of the item.
If a buyer found the means to independently verify the age of the item, they could then leave a positive review for the seller, telling that they didn’t lie about the age, this would make future buyers trust that seller more.
3
Creative contributions
Standardized system to certify the age of newly produced items
If the novel market for items with age-related value proved to be successful, new products could be developed with the notion that they'll likely be resold after some time on that market. This possibility alone could justify the introduction of a novel timestamping system for each or some (those that have greater demand on such market) newly made products.
How it works:
A tiny QR code-like stamp would be pressed on an item during the manufacturing process. An additional layer of protective film could be pressed on top. The production machinery would be always connected to the very precise digital clock on the internet to capture the exact time of stamping. Each such timestamp would be ascribed its own block on a blockchain cryptographic network to ensure authenticity and protect the timestamp. Anyone could then scan the code with their device, similarly to how barcodes are scanned now, and get the certified data about the precise time of manufacturing.
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Certifying the age of "old school" items that lack timestamps
For the time being, while the system proposed in my other contribution is not implemented, a similar job could be done by people who have knowledge/skills in evaluating the age of various artifacts - antique sellers, photographers, bouquinistes, etc. For example, it's not that difficult to evaluate at least an approximate age of an old photograph (within a certain margin of error), if you have some skills in that.
People who are good at this could provide timestamping as a separate service. They'd create their own stamps, indicate the margin of error (if any) on them, and charge the evaluation price according to the evaluation precision and the work they put in to figure that out.
For some items, radiocarbon dating could also be used, but the expected price of a to-be-sold item should then justify the cost of radiocarbon dating, which would be a rare case.
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Fighting the competition
I think the idea is conceptually great, but you need better solutions for a few problems:
Existence of selling platforms like eBay, Amazon, etc. that already have dedicated "Collectibles" sectors which have all the things you mentioned carefully designed. That includes detailed descriptions of the item meaning, timestamps, proofs or originality, certificates, reviews of sellers, etc.
In line with the first problem, the second one considers the validity of information about the manufacturing date, the time when a photo was taken, etc. The unique value of your platform could be the authenticity, but, in my opinion, should be regulated or manipulated in a more creative way, since it would be the only thing differing you from the competitors.
The stock market scheme you mentioned seems to be a combination of bidding on eBay or Amazon and re-selling items based on the demand. Actually, if you exclude bidding, you would have a simple "buy for lower-sell for higher" business scheme.
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Povilas S2 years ago
I don't think that eBay or Amazon could compete with this, even though they have sections for detailed descriptions, this is not oriented towards timestamping or finding items of a certain age. I imagine most of the sellers rarely use the detailed description option to write something there and little of buyers care about it as well.
A separate platform focusing only on that is always better. Giants like Amazon and eBay could introduce separate sections of their sites dedicated only for selling/buying such timestamped items, that would be something, but still, a separate platform would have advantages over this.
Regarding the second paragraph, I have some ideas about proving the age of items to be sold. Will post them as a creative contribution here.
Regarding the stock market principle, It doesn't seem to me that we're talking about the same thing. I simply meant that either people could sell their items directly through advertising on the platform and decide/negotiate the price with the buyers, or the platform could first buy the items from the users, to make a large stock of products and then resell them to those who are interested.
In the second option, the platform could make a more accurate evaluation of prices according to the availability of certain items and the demand for them.
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jnikola2 years ago
Povilas S Okay, I will read your contributions.
Concerning the platform buying the items, I think that complicates things a lot. Regular stock trading platforms do not buy stocks to be able to better predict their prices. I think the data on the quantities and prices of certain items on the platform that are currently being sold is enough for the platform to evaluate their prices. Maybe I am wrong, but I think there is no added value in owning them.
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Povilas S2 years ago
J. Nikola Yes, but then the platform should set the prices, not the sellers themselves. That's the issue. If the platform doesn't own the products, it can't tell people advertising their stuff through it what prices to charge. It could advise, give statistics, etc., but it's still up to people what they want to do, the platform is then only the means to advertise products. And that's the reason the prices of such a market will be less accurate in the supply/demand sense.
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Add your creative contribution
General comments
Michaela D2 years ago
I can see a market, especially for gifts of a higher value, like jewelry or paintings. Like an engagement ring that was stamped the day two people first met, or a painting that was stamped the day someone was born. People like paying extra for symbolic things.
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Subash Chapagain2 years ago
I was thinking of handwritten scripts as one of the personalized items that could be up for sale. Context: for immigrants that move to new countries to settle, the original language from their homeland seems to deplete in usage with generations. However, as a young man now living in the west who has his grandparents still back in their original countries, I would like to have personally handwritten scripture from the days of my grandparents. If some agency/business was there to bring me a copy (authentic) of such items, I would definitely pay for it because it will be like keeping an artefact of one's own history and culture.
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jnikola2 years ago
I like the idea, but what would stop you from selling the same item, with a detailed description, under a higher price than the regular item, on already existing platforms such as eBay?
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Povilas S2 years ago
J. Nikola Sorry, I don't quite understand the question. Are you talking about reselling the same timestamped item you bought from someone else?
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jnikola2 years ago
Povilas S Sorry, I didn't finish my thought. I underlined the edited part I forgot to write before.
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