The Appraiser

What it looks like, and what it does

A pawnshop counter under a green-shaded lamp. A loupe on a chain. A ledger open at a blank page. On the counter, a ring and a watch. In the glass case, the customer's reflection tagged with a paper ticket and a figure.

Speaks only when the customer has put something on the counter. Names the price once. Never haggles.

What is known

Customers report a voice that gave a price for the ring and then, quietly, one for them. The second price was always an odd, specific figure.

Those told a high figure carried themselves differently and were hired. Those told a low one stopped applying. The shop's ticket stubs list the figures against names.

What it can do

• Names a precise value for a person on sight
• Is believed by the person it names

Where it stops

• Cannot value anyone who refuses to look at the glass
• Never revises a figure

An encounter

Sharma was offered £30 for his father's watch and £11,400 for himself. He did not take the money for the watch. He took the figure and walked out. Six months later he was running a business and his bank had a line in its file that said “projected annual earnings.” He did not remember having applied.

Dev Sharma, customer, Gold Street pawnbroker's, A Saturday afternoon

What is established, and what is only said

• established: Thirty-two ticket stubs were matched to follow-up income records. Twenty-nine fall within 5 per cent.
• incomplete: No customer has been recorded as refusing the figure and doing otherwise.
• interpretation: It may not be predicting. It may be the cheapest and most reliable way of telling someone what they are worth.

Still unresolved

The figures match, to within five per cent, what each customer will eventually earn. The shop has never been seen to pay for a person.

Where it has been recorded

• Gold Street (confirmed) — Recorded by Dev Sharma, customer.

Stories about it

• The Appraiser at the Counter on Leeside Row (Entity story, 3 min) — A pawnbroker's counter in Alder Hill has a voice behind it that values whatever is brought in, and the figure it names for a pair of old boots is always the exact price the owner paid for them, plus the cost of the years the boots carried them.

Connected entities

• The Auctioneer of Small Hours — Both put a number on what a person is. The Appraiser names it. The Auctioneer sells it.