Nothing sells until it is described
Drifted works for dealers whose stock sits unsold because nobody has had time to write it up. We built the platform Frank Zoller Authentic History uses to turn photographs into catalogue rows, 1,250 lots a sale, and the AI writer that drafts Oorlogsspullen's product listings in the Netherlands. Around the listings sit the shop, the catalogue email and the search pages collectors find by name.
In detail
Why is a dealer's marketing problem really a listing problem?
Because a piece that has not been described cannot be found, priced or sold. Every dealer we have met has a back room, a shelf or a hard drive of photographed stock waiting for words, and the words are the slow part: the maker, the period, the marks, the condition, the comparable sale. Ads cannot sell what is not listed, and a search engine cannot rank a page that does not exist. So we start where the money is stuck. Once the writing keeps pace with the buying, the shop, the email and the search work have something to sell.
Two dealers, two countries, one bottleneck
Frank Zoller Authentic History runs militaria auctions in the United States. Every sale meant 1,250 lots, each needing a title, a description, a start price and an estimate, typed before a single bid could be taken. We loaded 32,000 of the house's past items as the reference set and built a platform that reads the photographs, writes the rows in the house's own voice and flags only the lots it is unsure of. The first live auction on it ran on 16 August 2026, and 400+ hours of typing have come off the calendar since. The same relationship covers zollerhistory.com and the retail shop beside it.
Oorlogsspullen is a militaria shop in the Netherlands with no auction calendar and the same pile of undescribed stock. We built it an AI writer that drafts a product listing from what the shop gives it; the dealer reads, corrects and publishes. No figure is published for it, because none has been measured and cleared, and we would rather say that than round one up.
What a dealer's month with us looks like
- 01
Describe the stock
Photographs in, listings out, in your voice and your format. A writer trained on your own past sales where you have them, or on your catalogue style where you do not. You read the drafts, and the corrections teach the next batch.
- 02
Open the shop between sales
An auction house earns on sale day; a shop earns every day. The pieces that do better at a fixed price go to a store that is yours, built so a collector can buy in two steps and ask a question in one.
- 03
Write to your own list
A catalogue email before each sale, and one when fresh stock lands, to the people who have already bought from you. Nothing reaches a buyer more cheaply, and most dealers have the list and never write to it.
- 04
Rank for the names collectors type
Collectors search by maker, regiment, pattern and mark, not for an antique shop near them. We write the pages so those searches land on your listing rather than on a marketplace that takes a cut.
- 05
Count what sold
Each month you see what was listed, what sold, which channel brought the buyer, and what sat. We measure the listing, because that is what was stuck.
A marketplace listing, or your own shop?
| A third-party marketplace | Your own shop | |
|---|---|---|
| Who owns the buyer | The marketplace. The buyer is theirs, and so is the next sale. | You. The name and the address are yours to write to. |
| What each sale costs | A commission on every piece, for as long as you list there. | Hosting, and the time it takes to describe the piece. |
| Where the search traffic lands | On the marketplace, beside every rival in your category. | On your page, under your name. |
| Our advice | Keep it for reach, and move the buyer onto your list. | Build it, and keep the listings identical on both. |
Can an AI write a listing a serious collector will trust?
Only when it is trained on the dealer's own records and read by the dealer before it goes live. A general model writes a confident paragraph about a bayonet it has never seen; a writer built on your past sales knows what you call things, what you have charged and which marks matter. That is why the auction platform started with 32,000 of the house's own items rather than the open internet. A person still signs off on condition and provenance, because that is where a dealer's reputation lives. The point is to remove the typing, not the expertise.
Where we draw the line
- Invent provenance. If the record does not say where a piece came from, neither does the listing.
- Promise a sale price. A piece is worth what the next collector pays, and anyone who says otherwise is guessing.
- Hold your catalogue. The listings, the shop and the mailing list are yours, in your accounts, from the first week.
- Take a share of the hammer. The fee is flat and written down before the work starts.
- Pretend to be cheap. We are not, and a dealer who has priced a good piece knows why.
The questions that follow.
Do you only work with militaria dealers?
No. Both named dealers sell militaria because that is where the first build happened. Stamps, coins, maps, ceramics and vintage watches have the same shape: stock that needs words, collectors who search by name, and a dealer who knows more than any model does.
Do I need an auction calendar to use the listing writer?
No. Oorlogsspullen has no sale dates; its writer drafts listings for a shop. The auction version fills a bidding template and the shop version fills a product page. Same engine, different output.
What does a listing writer cost?
It is scoped against the hours it removes, priced under the Tailored tier and put in writing before anything is built. The journal piece on whether to build or buy such a tool lists the questions to ask whoever quotes you.
Who checks the descriptions before they go live?
You do, or whoever on your floor knows the stock. The writer marks what it is unsure of; a person reads those, corrects them, and the correction trains the next draft.
Can you run ads for a dealer?
Yes, and usually last. The catalogue email and the search pages bring a collector more cheaply than a paid click does. Ads earn their place for a major sale or a new category, and they run in your own account.
Does it matter that you are in Karachi?
The studio keeps New York hours. The auction house is in the United States and the shop is in the Netherlands, and both get replies inside their own working day.
The price is published.
Where this leads.
No deck. No discovery theatre. One metric, one date, in the contract.