Why context matters: what to write in your scan description

A photo shows what the surface looks like. It cannot show where a piece came from, what it weighs or what anyone has already told you about it. Those details change a result more than most people expect, and typing them in is the cheapest improvement available to you.

What the photo does and does not carry

The analysis works primarily from visual evidence: colour, lustre, surface texture, wear, shape and any markings it can read. That gets you a long way.

What it cannot see:

• Weight. The most influential single input in an estimated value range.
• Where the piece came from. Inherited, bought from a jeweller, found in a field, picked up at a flea market — these are genuinely different starting probabilities.
• What you already know. A previous test, a documented purity, a stamp you can read but the camera could not.

How to write a useful description

Short and factual beats long and speculative.

• Be specific. "14k-marked ring, 3.8 g on a scale, small clear stone" tells the analysis more than three sentences of background.
• Say where it came from. One clause is enough.
• Include measurements. Weight above all, dimensions if you have them.
• Mention prior information. If the piece has been tested or documented before, say so and say what it showed.

Leave the unknowns unknown

This matters more than it sounds. If you state a purity you are not certain of, you are feeding a guess in as a fact, and the estimate inherits it.

When your description and the photo disagree — a piece described as 24k that looks like plated brass — the analysis will flag the discrepancy rather than pick a side. That is the correct behaviour, and it is useful: a flagged conflict is a prompt to check the stamp again, not a failure.

So describe what you know, mark what you are unsure of as unsure, and let the result tell you where the tension is.

What context cannot do

Better inputs give you a better-founded estimate. They do not turn a photo into a test.

Professional assessment of a piece involves physical checks a camera cannot perform — acid or XRF testing, specific gravity, examination under magnification by someone holding the object. IsItGOLD? is built to tell you quickly and honestly whether that step is worth taking, and roughly what is at stake if it is.

Give it good context, read the result as an estimate, and use it to decide what to do next.