AI in collectibles
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Artificial intelligence in collectibles refers to the use of machine learning and computer vision to grade, authenticate, price, and catalog collectible items such as trading cards, coins, sports memorabilia, sneakers, and luxury goods. The collectibles trade depends heavily on condition assessment and authentication, two tasks that are slow, subjective, and vulnerable to counterfeiting when performed by humans alone. Beginning in the late 2010s, established grading firms and online marketplaces started deploying image recognition systems to assist (but generally not replace) human experts. A separate strand of activity concerns digital collectibles, where generative AI is used to create artwork sold as non-fungible tokens.
This article covers AI-assisted grading, marketplace authentication, counterfeit detection, price and cataloging tools, and digital collectibles. For the historical ChatGPT plugin ecosystem that served collectors, see Collectibles ChatGPT Plugins.
Professional grading assigns a numeric condition score to an item, which strongly affects its market value. Two of the largest grading companies have publicly adopted computer vision to support this work.
In April 2021, Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA), the trading card grading arm of Collectors, acquired Genamint, a Long Island software company. According to the announcement, Genamint's technology analyzes each card in real time to provide diagnostics and measurements and to detect alterations or other changes made to a card's surface. It also performs unique card identification, described as "card fingerprinting," which identifies a specific physical card so that PSA can track its provenance, resubmissions, and condition changes over time. PSA stated that the goal was to grade more cards faster while improving accuracy, and was explicit that it was "not eliminating humans from the grading process" but "improving the process by adding technology."[1][2] Genamint founder Kevin Lenane joined PSA as a vice president of product management.[2]
For coins, Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) partnered with the firm Positronic to build a machine learning grading aid that it folded into its PCGS Gold Shield service, announced in 2018. The system checks a submitted coin against what PCGS calls a "vast proprietary imaging database" to help graders determine authenticity and condition. PCGS president Don Willis said the company had "been testing and refining the system for over two years" and that it would become "a crucial component of our fight against counterfeiting." PCGS said the technology reduced grading time while increasing accuracy.[3]
Beyond the major grading houses, several technology vendors sell AI grading as a service. Ximilar, a visual AI company, offers a card grading API that detects a card in a photo, locates its corners and edges, and computes grades for centering, corners, edges, and surface, returning an overall grade and a detailed breakdown. The company markets the service for bulk pre-grading by collectors, apps, and expert graders, and supports trading card games such as Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh as well as sports cards.[4] A number of consumer-facing apps offer similar predicted grades, though their accuracy claims are vendor-reported and are not independently verified here.
| Company | Role | AI partner or product | First announced |
|---|---|---|---|
| PSA (Collectors) | Trading card grading | Genamint (acquired) | April 2021 |
| PCGS | Coin grading | Positronic; PCGS Gold Shield | 2018 |
| Ximilar | Grading-as-a-service vendor | Card Grading API | Commercial product |
Online marketplaces use AI both to verify items and to flag likely counterfeits before they reach buyers.
eBay operates an Authenticity Guarantee program that routes eligible high-value items to independent authenticators across several collector categories, including sneakers, watches, handbags, and trading cards. The company launched authentication for single ungraded trading cards in the United States in January 2022, initially routing eligible cards to third-party authenticators, and later expanded coverage to graded cards. By 2024 eBay had named PSA as the exclusive authenticator for both raw and graded trading cards.[5][6] eBay has reported that its Authenticity Guarantee program verified more than one million items in a single quarter.[6]
In 2023, eBay moved further into AI-based authentication by acquiring Certilogo, a Milan-based company whose technology issues AI-powered digital IDs for apparel and fashion goods and lets consumers confirm a garment's authenticity. eBay announced a definitive agreement to acquire Certilogo on May 17, 2023, and said it had completed the acquisition on July 11, 2023; financial terms were not disclosed. eBay described the technology as enabling "counterfeit-proof digital product passports" for its pre-loved fashion category.[7][8]
More broadly, image-recognition systems support counterfeit detection by comparing a suspected item against reference images of authentic examples and flagging discrepancies in logos, printing, or construction. In the trading card market, counterfeiting has grown more sophisticated, and several AI tools are marketed to detect fakes and altered cards by examining features such as print patterns, paper texture, and holographic elements. Industry guidance generally recommends that AI screening supplement, rather than replace, expert human review.
AI is also used to identify and catalog items and to estimate value. eBay introduced an AI-powered image-based listing tool, sometimes called its "magical" bulk listing tool, at eBay Open in 2024, initially for sports trading cards. Sellers can photograph cards in bulk, and the system scans the images to suggest categories, titles, and item specifics and to generate draft listings, prefilling values when it is confident of a match. eBay reported that the tool meaningfully reduced listing time for trading card sellers, while noting that sellers remain responsible for the accuracy of their listings.[9] In January 2025, eBay added an integration with PSA to display card population data directly within listings.[6]
Vendor recognition APIs, such as those from Ximilar, perform the related task of identifying a collectible from a photo, returning attributes such as the card, set, side, and whether it carries an autograph, which feeds both cataloging and price-lookup workflows.[4]
A distinct category is digital collectibles, typically sold as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) recorded on a blockchain. Here AI appears on the creative side rather than the authentication side. Generative art platforms run an algorithm at the moment of purchase to produce a unique image; Art Blocks, launched on the Ethereum blockchain, is a prominent example of algorithmic generative art minted as NFTs. The same generative techniques that create such artwork have also raised provenance and fraud concerns, including AI-generated forgeries and disputes over the originality of machine-generated works. Because claims about the size and performance of the NFT market vary widely and are often promotional, this article does not assert specific market figures.