Evaluating Value of Items

[Jason]

Is there any abilities that are intended to be used for evaluating the value of items. I went digging last night in the middle of a session, but couldn't find anything. I am posting here to see if someone knows where that could be.

[The Undying]

The economy element is only lightly addressed in Earthdawn, both from source book flavor and system mechanics. Not a complaint, I think that's a good thing, but some people enjoy the economy stuff more than my table.

So, the specific answer to your questions is no, I don't believe an "appraisal" skill exists Rules as Written. If you want something deeper, you'll need to roll your own.

The rest is just kind of my thoughts on economy of Earthdawn:

I'd say there are really two classes of items: commodity and non-commodity. Commodity are the things that you can usually buy from vendors, even if it's very rare and maybe only available in large cities. In these cases, the value of things are well established (although, there could be elements of market economy if you're so inclined - podunk village doesn't have the cash to buy your leftover Crystal Plate, Crystal Raiders may pay less for Crystal anything since they can easily farm and fabricate it themselves, etc), no real need to appraise. As a GM, your primary roll would be determining what the standard buy rate for vendors are - I'd say 50% value for consumables, maybe 10-25% value on non-consumables (e.g., armor, weapons). Nobody wants your gashed up Hide Armor now that you've gotten something better. After that, Haggle can adjust but remind the players that, if they try to haggle, vendors will try to Haggle back, so it's either A Thing or it isn't. You could also allow characters with relevant Artisan or other skills to try to talk up an item (someone with Craft/Forge armor could maybe explain that the armor really isn't in THAT BAD a shape and is worth 50%).

Non-commodities are dicey. These are basically things that have no established value, and primarily, these are Thread Items. The GMG provides info on what items are theoretically worth, but that's just theoretical. There are lots of great ways to handle this, depending on how much economy your table wants. Light Economy? Just let them sell it for the item's theoretical value, less whatever the overhead is. Mid-tier Economy? Thread Items likely are really only viable as product in cities, likely only have value if you can explain what their powers are (and the buyer may want to hold onto the item for a while to perform their own Item History), and likely have far less value without all the Research Knowledge so that should take a major chunk of the cash if not provided. Heavy Economy? I'd recommend moving away from allowing vendors to buy/sell these AT ALL, make finding a buyer something of a mini-story in its own right, or use a Clearing House (trading company that specializes in the auction of Thread Items who will auction items on a fixed commission percentage but provide no money until the item is sold). On the appraisal question, though, I don't think adventurers really have the skills to assess the monetary value of non-commodity items - it's more like on Storage Wars where the characters find something interesting-looking and have to find someone to tell them if it's any good, and even then, the response is often caveated with "if you can find the right buyer" (which means, not random Joe Vendor).

[RazanMG]

Knowledge skills could be used.

[Slimcreeper]

Knowledge skills and half-magic. I would also accept Haggle for common goods, if someone asked.