Identification & appraisal

Identification is not one mechanic. Visual inspection checks whether a product is genuine; appraisal asks you to estimate the value of a customer’s item. Both protect your margin, but they use different tools and have different rewards. Test yourself with the identification practice.

Visual identification

Use the magnifying glass on an item, then compare what you see with the matching reference. The demo has three dedicated authenticity checks:

Check	Reference	What it answers
Hemingway cigarettes	Hemingway Identification Guide and Hemingway Color Checker	Is the pack genuine or counterfeit?
Food Stamps	Food Stamp Identification Handbook	Is the stamp genuine or counterfeit?
Immunivax Injectors	Immunivax Assessment Guide	Is the injector genuine and usable?

Detailed checklists: Hemingway cigarettes, Food Stamps and Immunivax injectors.

Make the claim only when the item gives you a real discrepancy. A correct inspection can open a good-inspection discount; a bad accusation is a reputation risk. A counterfeit item is also different from a stolen item: authenticity and Security heat are separate questions.

Water has its own inspection route. Test it with a Water Testing Strip or AquaScan, then treat it with the water system. The cigarette, stamp and injector guides do not identify water quality.

Appraisal service

The Appraiser Board offers a separate income stream. A board member invites you to join; the entry fee is 85 Credits on normal mode and 170 Credits on hard mode. After joining, put the Appraisal Board Junior Certificate in the display case to attract appraisal customers.

When a customer brings an appraisal item:

1. Inspect the item and submit an estimated value.
2. The estimate is acceptable from 50% through 150% of the item’s true base value.
3. An estimate outside that range is rejected as too low or too high. Each failed estimate adds 49 impatience; at 100 or more, the customer leaves.
4. An accepted estimate pays the base fee plus a percentage of your estimate. The game also creates an Appraisal Slip recording the fee.

Accuracy and reward

The accuracy band is based on your estimate compared with the true value. The percentage is applied to your estimate, then the 20-Credit base fee is added.

Accuracy	Estimate compared with true value	Percentage of estimate
Perfect	95–105%	5%
Excellent	91–94% or 106–109%	8%
Good	86–90% or 110–114%	10%
Mediocre	76–85% or 115–124%	12%
Awful	75% or less, or 125% or more	15%

The achievement Master Appraiser tracks 10 perfect appraisals. Accuracy is tracked separately from whether the customer accepts the estimate.

Which guide does what?

Not every item named “guide” belongs to identification:

• Hemingway Identification Guide, Food Stamp Identification Handbook and Immunivax Assessment Guide support authenticity or condition checks.
• Plasma Cartridge Appraisal Guide and Ribwich Appraisal Guide have dedicated Plasma and Ribwich pages.
• Water Trading Manual, Metallurgy Manual and BloomBerry Wine Fermenting Guide explain trading or production; see the metallurgy and winemaking walkthroughs.
• The Mentor’s Handbook is the in-game place for notes and guide material. A book does not replace the magnifying glass, tester or the estimate you must submit.

Do not mix these checks with identifying augs or wanted customers. Use the Aug Scanner for a suspected aug and the wanted list for Security targets.

Sources: item localization and factories; AppraisalHelper, AppraisalServiceHelper, StoreClientListAppraisal and PlayerStore from demo build 049-Rev3-L; Steam store page.