They came to me almost by accident and, although I specialised in antiques and dealt in postal history, I always intended to ‘get round to them later’. Of course, I never did. The handwriting was too cramped, the ink too faded, and after a day of running a shop the thought of transcribing 200-year-old script felt more like penance then pleasure – a burden rather than a reward.
Then, this year, everything changed. I finally turned to artificial intelligence, and it turned out to be the most unexpectedly useful tool I’ve encountered in decades of collecting and selling.
Most people still associate AI with futuristic robots or students cheating on essays. But for those of us in the antiques trade, its value is more practical.
With a simple photograph taken on my phone, AI was able to transcribe long, cross-written letters from the 1820s. Within seconds it produced a readable version, line for line, without losing the original spelling or punctuation. It even highlighted unclear words and provided modern summaries when needed.
Suddenly, these silent documents came alive.
I discovered family quarrels, legal disputes, medical worries and the day-to-day realities of rural Scotland in the early 19th century – and even references to wider issues such as slavery and emancipation in the West Indies. Insights that had been sitting in a box for decades were finally accessible.
For dealers and collectors, this technology offers real advantages:
1. Faster research: AI can read difficult handwriting, extract names, dates and places, and even cross-reference them with public records.
2. Better cataloguing: A shoebox of papers can become a searchable archive in an afternoon.
3. Enhanced provenance: Letters, diaries and documents can be can be properly understood, not just skimmed.
4. Improved sales: A well-described item with accurate description and context consistently attracts more interest – and higher prices.
Removes barriers
None of this replaces the expertise, judgment or intuition of the antiques trade. But it does remove the barriers that stop us from examining material properly in the first place.
For me, it unlocked a family archive I had been unintentionally ignoring for most of my adult life.
If there’s one lesson, it’s this: Sometimes the most valuable tool in your workshop isn’t made of brass or mahogany – it’s an app on your phone.
Joseph M Richards
