Every day, thousands of people type the same question into Google: "What is this worth?"
Maybe they inherited a coin collection. Maybe they found a shoebox of baseball cards. Maybe they're holding a watch their grandfather wore every day for forty years and they don't know if it's a $200 Seiko or a $20,000 Seiko.
The answers they find are terrible. Forum posts from 2014. Dealer sites that lowball so they can buy. Price guides locked behind paywalls. AI tools that hallucinate values. Reddit threads where the top comment is "about tree fiddy."
We built Curio Comp because the question deserves a real answer.
Who We Are
Carl Fyffe and Jason Czura met through a shared obsession with building things that actually work.
Carl is the engineer. Thirty years of building software, from Navy help desks to defense systems to AI platforms. He's the person who, when handed a problem, doesn't ask "is it possible?" but "how fast can we ship it?" He built Curio Comp's AI identification engine, the valuation pipeline, and the platform you're using right now. Before this, he built a community of over 600 paying subscribers around a niche collectibles tracking tool. He knows what collectors need because he's been building for them for years.
Jason is the operator. Twenty-eight years at AT&T building one of the world's largest wireless networks, then leading cloud engineering teams for the Department of Defense. He's the person who takes something that works in a demo and makes it work at scale. Securely, reliably, and without cutting corners. He holds an active Top Secret security clearance, which tells you something about how seriously he takes doing things right. He brings the same discipline to Curio Comp: if we tell you something is worth $5,000, the systems behind that answer need to be as trustworthy as the ones protecting national infrastructure.
Together: one person who builds fast and one who builds to last.
Why We Built This
In 2024, both of us lost a parent. Within months of each other.
If you've been through it, you know what comes next. After the grief, after the service, after the relatives go home, there's the stuff. Boxes of it. Carl inherited coins and stamps. Jason inherited cards and electronics. Neither of us had any idea what any of it was worth.
So we did what engineers do. We started using AI to sort through it. Uploading photos, cross-referencing price guides, trying to figure out what deserved a professional appraisal and what was safe to donate. Slowly, we built a process that worked. Repeatable. Reliable enough to trust.
Then Carl got frustrated with the interface. The generic AI chat wasn't built for this. So he started building a better one. A tool designed specifically for identifying and valuing collectibles. Jason saw it and wanted in. Not just to use it, but to build it.
Around the same time, people Carl had worked with in the collectibles space started asking the same questions we'd been asking. "My dad left me all this stuff. What do I do?" It kept happening. Same story, different attic.
Carl called Jason and said he thought there was a business here. Jason's instinct for operations paired with Carl's obsession with solving hard problems, and Curio Comp was born.
We built it for the version of ourselves that stood in a parent's house, surrounded by boxes, with no idea where to start.
What We Believe
We don't buy your items. We have no reason to lowball you. No reason to inflate values. We just tell you what the data says.
We show our work. Every valuation is backed by recent auction results, established price guides, and comparable sales data. You can verify anything we tell you.
We admit when we're not sure. If we don't have enough data, we say so. A confident wrong answer is worse than an honest "we need more information."
We'd rather lose a sale than mislead someone. If your collection isn't worth a professional appraisal, we'll tell you that, even though telling you the opposite would make us more money.
The Technology
Curio Comp uses computer vision AI trained on millions of collectible images to identify what you have, assess visible condition, and estimate value based on real market data. Not guesses.
The AI handles the heavy lifting. When you need certainty, human experts in our network - specialists with 10+ years in their category - review the AI's work and produce a formal valuation.
Carl built the stack. Jason makes sure it's secure and reliable. The AI gets smarter with every photo uploaded.
Beyond Business
Jason and his wife Kaitlin are working with the South Carolina Attorney General and state legislators to pass child safety legislation, a mission that became personal after their son Tanner was seriously injured in a mass-casualty event. They also run Kingdom Come Real Estate Solutions, a family business that restores distressed properties and expands affordable housing in Coastal Carolina. Ten percent of profits go directly to charitable causes.
We believe businesses should make the world slightly better, not just slightly richer.
Talk to Us
We read every message.
Email: support@curiocomp.com
If you're not sure whether Curio Comp is right for your situation, just ask. We'll tell you honestly, even if the answer is "you don't need us."