Alicia dug through the black-leather-bound tome, its once-white paper looking more like papyrus nowadays. For a lot of people, the words within it were less comprehensible than hieroglyphs, but not for Alicia. The archaic terms, nonsensical numbering, and endless cross-references were not merely the symbols ornamenting some archaic temple’s walls to her. Rather, they were the keys to the temple itself, not to mention its treasure room.
Yes, another of the Commonwealth’s citizens had passed, and that was always a tragedy. And yet, while Mr. . . . Levinson, yes, that was his name’s, broken body and oxygen-starved mind rotted in the ground, he was in fact going to live on, in quite a few ways, for a very long time.
The drones had done the routine work concerning Mr. Levinson’s estate, examining the house’s state of repair with their scanners and packing up Mr. Levinson’s personal minutiae, the kind executors can’t throw away quick enough. They had also already appraised his horses: their breed, height, weight, and parentage were analyzed to determine their fair market value, which was to be the opening bid at the upcoming auction. Now it was Alicia’s turn. There was no doubt that Mr. Levinson had quite a few fine items in his possession. It was up to Alicia and her decades of experience to determine just how fine.
Thankfully, Mr. Levinson had done quite well for himself, and had a lovely little study for Alicia to finish her inspection in. The drones had already done the literal heavy lifting, putting the disputed items ready for inspection on the mahogany desk, which was certainly pre-Split, and quite possibly pre-21st century with its spiral legs and a 4-shelf structure built onto the back of the desk for books and such, but no slide-out tray for a keyboard or tablet.
First, was Mr. Levinson’s porcelain. Alicia thumbed over to the “China” section of the archaic book, right past the subsection which stated that century eggs were not actually a century old and had no financial value. The next page was a table, with the size of the set running on the y-axis and the age of the set on the x-axis to provide a rough estimate.
Mr. Levinson’s set was pushing 275 years old, and had a couple dozen pieces in total, landing near the bottom-right of the table, an estimated value of $153,721.62 in pre-Split dollars. However, these pieces were particularly intricate, rimmed with vines of gold leaf and inlaid with drawings of historic Chinese architecture of a dark indigo, making the estimate a low one.
The next page was another table, with the size of the set on the y-axis again, but the x-axis now counting the number of chips, with the intersecting value as a multiplier for a second estimated value of the set.
There were only two chips in the entire set; funnily enough both on one plate. The first was a barely noticeable defect in the gold leaf taken off the edge, with the second an infinitesimal crack running through the middle of the plate, only noticeable because it fractured one of the leaves in the plate’s central pattern.
Seeing the multiplier of .932, Alicia thought about eliminating this piece from the set to see if an immaculate (at least according to the book) set would be worth more. Going over the new math, she came up with $140,961.00; not worth throwing away the imperfection. Alicia input the number into the record and went onto the next asset.
Second was Mr. Levinson’s jewelry, or more accurately, what remained of his late wife’s jewelry. She apparently had a penchant for turquoise, with a pair of bracelets which contained curving, twisting patterns of turquoise framed in still-shimmering silver. They looked like Celtic tattoos, but in a considerably lighter shade than woad, and belonging to a rather more civilized being.
Running her tablet’s scanner over them, she found each was 23.15 karats, a shade higher than the drones’ estimates. She weighed out each bracelet; the first contained 113.4 grams of turqouise, the other 113.5. The remaining weight of both was sterling silver, easily appraised by the drones’ key commodity database.
Alicia opened the book to the jewelry section. She hit the topaz value chart five pages off from her target; clearly she was slipping. Flicking to the proper page, Alicia didn’t see any defects on the jewelry, setting the multiplier at 1.000. That, combined with the weight and the purity of the turquoise set its value at roughly $71,324.15. Alicia added an extra 25% for the quality of the craftsmanship.
Her work otherwise done, Alicia waited until banking hours ended to convert the value to the Common Currency, as she could then pick the highest value of the day for the conversion. Putting the values of all the tangible goods—both inspected by the drones and herself—into her tablet, Alicia came up with -C-391,871,612.04 in value, half of which would go to the Commonwealth. The -C-195 million or so in collectible value put Alicia well over her monthly quota of -C-600 million once she combined it with her three prior appraisal visits over the last two weeks.
With her quota met, Alicia moved on to the desk, a very small part of the day’s appraisal. Since it had already been under the direct control of an Assessor (or any Officer of the Commonwealth for that matter) and was important to said Officer’s conduction of Commonwealth business, it was Commonwealth property should the Officer in question want it. Alicia didn’t need the book to answer that question.