How to choose a jewelry appraiser

Tools of the profession.

Unlike getting your teeth cleaned or the oil in your car changed, getting your jewelry appraised is not something you do regularly. It mostly comes up at one of life’s important events – such as when you move into a new home and you get a new insurance policy, when someone dies and leaves you jewelry, or maybe if you decide it’s time to sell your jewelry.

               How do you find someone you trust to appraise your jewelry? You probably start the same way you do to find a dentist or repair shop: that is, by asking friends and associates for recommendations and checking out online reviews. These aren’t bad ways; you can be fairly sure that you’ll end up with a decent service provider.

But can you judge a prospective jewelry appraiser for yourself? You might also ask, is there even such a thing as a professional jewelry appraiser? Isn’t it all just a matter of opinion? Doesn’t “value” come down to what someone is willing to pay?

               With some nuances we’ll get to shortly, the answer to all these questions is “yes.” Please read on. What follows will help you pick a jewelry appraiser you can trust and whose work you can believe in:

·        How much should I pay for a jewelry appraisal? Many jewelry stores charge $50-75 per item. Some of the country's most highly qualified jewelry appraisers bill around $200 per hour. (The assignments with legal strings attached, such as marital dissolution, are the costliest.) Either method, by the piece or by the hour, is legitimate. You will just want some idea of the maximum fee to expect. Regardless of their published rates, most jewelry appraisers consider each prospective assignment individually and often end up quoting a project fee.

·        How long will it take? It depends on how many items you have and how complex each one is to identify and describe. Why you need them appraised is just as important, because this dictates how long it takes to research their values and make the argument for what they’re worth. In general, insurance appraisals take less time than, for instance, estate-related assignments, which may call for a full rendering of the appraiser’s evidence and reasoning.

·         Do I have to leave my jewelry to be appraised? Some jewelry appraisers, especially those who do not buy, sell, or broker but only appraise, are willing to examine your pieces while you wait, especially if you only have a few simple items to appraise for insurance coverage. If you have more than a few items, or if the appraisal will be used for a legal or another potentially complex purpose, most jewelry appraisers will ask for time.

·        If I’m asked to leave my jewelry, what can the appraiser do to reassure me? If you’ve ever heard that the three most important things about real estate value are “location, location, and location,” then with jewelry, it’s “condition, condition, and condition.” In other words, your appraiser should show you, through a loupe or a microscope, characteristics that identify your item’s condition (and any other identifying characteristics) – and be willing to show them to you again when you come back. Even if a piece is in mint condition, a careful inspection will disclose unique features (such as inclusions in gemstones, or their measurements in millimeters) that identify a piece as yours, and yours alone.

·        How can an appraiser document my jewelry before I decide to leave it? The appraiser can give you a written receipt with a brief description, take a quick photograph of your jewelry and email it to you before you leave.

·        Can anyone appraise jewelry? Yes. Sadly, it’s true: there are no mandatory requirements for someone to write and sign a jewelry appraisal. This means there are a lot of bad jewelry appraisals in the world, ones with incomplete or inaccurate descriptions and undefined or incorrect values. Willful misrepresentation is quite rare, but if the appraiser is also the seller, there may be inherent bias, especially if this dual status is not prominently disclosed.

The greater problem is competence or the lack of it. Most jewelry appraisers are store employees, many with limited product knowledge and little or no understanding of how to prove value based on evidence from the marketplace. Knowing how to do this is the one essential activity that defines what a professional jewelry appraiser does.

·        If the appraiser is a gemologist, does that mean I’m getting a good appraisal? No. Almost all jewelry appraisers are also gemologists, but not all gemologists are appraisers or try to be. Similarly, a few jewelry appraisers are manufacturing jewelers, but not all jewelers are appraisers. The same thing applies to jewelry store owners. Knowing how to make jewelry, or buying and selling it, definitely helps in appraising it. But understanding the concepts of “value” and good ethics in appraising only comes by treating it as a profession.

·        What about membership in an appraisal society? Professional jewelry appraisers usually choose to belong to one or more of several societies: American Gem Society, American Society of Appraisers, International Society of Appraisers, National Association of Jewelry Appraisers, and a few others. At various times, I have belonged to each of these groups. (My current affiliations are listed on my appraisal page.) They are all worthwhile organizations. While their standards for earning their various professional designations vary, for the most part, they agree on fundamental principles of valuation and ethical practice.

·        Is there a higher appraisal standard that everyone might agree with? Yes. The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) was born in the late 1980s out of bad lending practices of savings and loan institutions, partly based on real estate appraisals that led to inflated loan values. USPAP is focused on real property but also touches on personal and intangible property. It describes what it presents as “the generally accepted and recognized standards of appraisal practice in the United States.” After thirty years of having been developed and refined by appraisers of all types of property, USPAP can fairly lay claim to this statement.

(I have been a long-time advocate of USPAP. From 2020 to 2022 I served on the Personal Property Resources Panel, an adjunct committee of the Appraisal Foundation, which is authorized by Congress to develop and promulgate USPAP.)

·        Is there one quick way to judge if a jewelry appraiser is competent? After “hello,” the first thing you should hear out of the mouth of a well-trained appraiser is “why do you need your jewelry appraised?” Remember: there are no recreational valuations; you need a specific reason to have your property appraised if you want a meaningful result.

“Value” does not exist at all, except in the context of how you are using the information you’re asking the jewelry appraiser to provide. Are you insuring, buying, selling, distributing, or donating jewelry?

Answering this all-important question empowers your appraiser to discover and evaluate information about pricing patterns in a particular kind of market, with particular kinds of buyers and sellers, and at a particular time. Only then can an informed, well-reasoned expert opinion of value — that of a professional jewelry appraiser — be formed.