For executors and administrators
Know what's in the boxes before probate decisions get made
You can't value an estate you haven't identified, and you can't un-clear a skip. A first-pass inventory tells you which items justify a real appraiser's fee and which are bulk — from someone who will never make an offer on any of it.
5 photos · no account · no card · we never buy and never sell
A first-pass collection inventory is a photograph-based triage of an estate's collectibles, done before anything is sold or split. It separates the items worth a professional's fee from the bulk, states every value as a range, and names the irreversible mistakes. The executor plan covers five collections for $129.
What an executor actually gets
An attention list
Every item worth a closer look, with the reason it was flagged. This is the list you hand an appraiser, so their hours go on the four things that matter instead of the two hundred that don't.
A bulk assessment
Everything else, grouped and priced as lots. Most of an inherited collection lands here, and knowing that early is what stops an estate paying professional fees on common circulated coinage.
The do-NOT list
The irreversible mistakes, before anyone makes them. In an estate the damage is usually done by a relative tidying up, which is why this sits at the top of the report rather than in an appendix.
An action plan
What to authenticate, what to sell, and where. It names routes, not buyers — we don't broker and we don't take a referral fee from anyone who does.
A plain-English verdict
What this collection is, written for someone with no collecting expertise. Beneficiaries read it too, and a report full of jargon is a report that gets argued with.
A printable archival PDF
Plus a tracker that survives the whole process. Co-executors and beneficiaries who want a copy get the PDF; there's nothing to log into.
The four things to settle before anything moves
Almost nothing about a collection is urgent. Two things are, and both of them are about sequence rather than speed.
- Nobody cleans anything. A cleaned coin routinely loses 50–90% of its value and it cannot be undone. Say this to every relative with access to the house, in writing, early. The full argument is on why cleaning inherited coins destroys value, and it applies to records, stamps and comics too.
- Nothing comes out of its original packaging. Sealed coin holders, mint cases and proof sets, unopened wax packs, records with their original inners and inserts, stamps on their covers. The packaging is part of the provenance, and a proof set is worth more intact than the coins are loose.
- The boxes come out of the damp garage. Humidity makes stamp gum stick and foxing — brown spotting on paper — spread. An attic or a garage will quietly ruin a collection over one summer. This is the only part of the job with a clock on it.
- No sight-unseen offer gets accepted before there's an inventory. An offer for the whole lot is a bet that there's something good in it, and that bet is being made against the estate. The first-week checklist covers what to do before anyone comes to the house.
This is not a certified appraisal, and for you that matters more
Be clear on this before you buy anything. HeirLoupe produces an informational estimate from photographs. It is not a certified appraisal and it carries nobody's signature. For an insurance schedule, a contested estate, a charitable deduction or anything going in front of a court, you need a qualified appraiser who has examined the items in person.
What this does is answer the expensive question first: which items justify that fee. An appraiser charges for time, and time spent on two hundred common circulated coins is money the estate has burned. A triage report hands over a short list instead.
We're also not lawyers, and none of this is legal or fiduciary advice. What we'd say plainly is that an executor who takes the first offer from the person who valued the collection has a story that reads badly to a beneficiary a year later. A flat fee paid to someone who never buys leaves a cleaner paper trail. Whether that matters in your situation is a question for your solicitor, not for us.
How this compares with the other routes
Fee structures, not quoted prices. Appraiser and clearance rates vary widely by region and by specialism, so ask before you engage anyone.
| Route | What you get | What it costs | Conflict of interest |
|---|---|---|---|
| HeirLoupe triage | Attention list, bulk assessment, action plan, do-NOT list, printable PDF | $39 · $129 for five | None. We never buy, sell or broker |
| Certified appraiser | A signed valuation that a court or insurer will accept | Hourly or per item | None, but you pay for every hour, including the bulk |
| Dealer walkthrough | A cash offer, often for the whole lot, on the day | Free | Direct. The valuer is the buyer |
| House-clearance firm | An empty house, quickly | Fee or offset | Direct, and it's irreversible once the van leaves |
| Split it between beneficiaries now | A closed file and an argument later | Nothing up front | None, but nobody knows what was divided |
A dealer's offer is a real offer and a dealer is a legitimate buyer for bulk — they take the risk and carry the stock. The problem is narrower than people make it: the person valuing the collection should not be the person buying it. The arithmetic on dealers, auction houses and marketplaces goes through what each route actually returns.
The three things executors ask before paying
Is $129 the right tier for me?
Often not, and it's worth saying so. The executor plan covers five collections at $129. One collection is a $39 report, and a whole household of photographs — up to 600 — is $79. If you're settling one estate with one collection in it, buy the $39 report and ignore the plan. The plan earns its keep when you're handling more than one estate, or one estate where the deceased kept several separate collections. What each tier covers lays out the photo limits side by side.
What happens to the photographs?
They're rotated on ingest, because a third of phone photos otherwise arrive sideways, and capped at 1600px. They're stored under hash-derived paths rather than the original filename — that filename is usually IMG_4471 but is sometimes a person's name — and served only through a signed route. Nothing is passed to a dealer, a broker or anyone else who might like to make an offer.
How long does it take?
You upload the photographs and stay on the page. A live tracker runs while the passes work through them, usually two to five minutes. How the examination works covers the three passes and why every figure comes back as a range.
How to start, in order
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Secure the boxes and tell the family not to tidy
Out of the damp, out of the heat, nothing cleaned, nothing opened. One message to everyone with a key is the cheapest thing you'll do all week.
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Count the collections, not the items
Five separate collections is the executor plan. One is a single report. Counting collections is how you pick a tier, and it takes about a minute.
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Send five photographs first
The free first look costs nothing, needs no account and no card, and tells you whether anything here deserves a full examination. If the answer is no, you've saved the estate the fee.
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Photograph properly, in daylight
Diffuse daylight rather than flash, both sides of anything unusual, and through the plastic rather than opening a holder. Glare hides the detail that identifies an item.
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Hand the attention list to an appraiser
That's the point of the exercise. A short list of items worth examining in person, and a defensible reason for every other decision you make about the rest.
Who this is wrong for
If you need a signed valuation, buy an appraisal, not this. If the estate is contested and solicitors are already writing to each other, get the appraiser in first and treat a triage report as background reading at most. If you want somebody to take the collection away and handle the selling, we don't do that at any price — we don't buy, sell or broker, which is exactly why we can afford to tell you a collection is worth very little.
This is an informational estimate from photographs, not a certified appraisal. We tell you what is worth paying an appraiser to look at — we have no interest in buying anything you own. Values are always given as ranges, and where a photograph can't settle it, the report says “worth a professional look” rather than inventing a figure. Nothing here is legal, tax or fiduciary advice.
Questions executors ask
Including the ones that talk you out of the larger tier.
Can I use this for the probate valuation?
Not as the valuation itself. It's an informational estimate from photographs and it carries no signature, so an insurer or a court will want a qualified appraiser who has handled the items.
What it's for is the step before: knowing which items justify that appraiser's time, and having a written record of the state of the collection before anyone touched it.
What counts as five separate collections?
Five collections you'd describe separately — the coins, the stamp albums, the records, the cards, the banknotes. Each gets up to 200 photographs and its own report. One estate can easily use all five, which is usually why an executor buys the plan.
Can beneficiaries see the report?
Yes. It's a printable archival PDF, so you can send it or print it for anyone entitled to see it. There's no account for them to make and nothing for them to subscribe to.
Another box turned up after the report. Do I pay full price again?
No. A re-triage is $9 for up to 200 photographs and rebuilds the report around the new material. It's the same price if grading results come back and change the picture.
Do you buy from estates, or pass details to someone who does?
No, and no. We charge a flat fee, we never buy, never sell, never broker and never take a percentage of what the estate eventually gets. No details go to anyone who does. That's the only reason a report can afford to say a collection is worth very little.
The clearance firm is booked for Friday. What do I do?
Photograph the collectibles before the van arrives, or move them out of the house. A clearance is not reversible, and a collection that leaves in a van cannot be inventoried afterwards. Five photographs and a free first look take a few minutes.
Get an inventory before anything leaves the house
Five photographs, no account, no card. If nothing in the estate deserves a closer look, the report says so and you've spent nothing finding out.
We don't buy · we don't sell · we don't take a percentage