What a Jewelry Appraisal Costs, and When You Need One

There are two different things called an appraisal, they cost very different amounts, and most people who ask for one want the other.

A written appraisal is a formal document prepared by a qualified appraiser. You pay for it, and it exists to satisfy a third party: an insurer, a court, the IRS.

A verbal appraisal is a jeweler examining a piece and telling you what it is and what it is worth. It takes a few minutes. Here it is free.

Which you need depends entirely on who is going to read it.

What does a written appraisal cost?

Appraisers charge for their time, and the fee should not depend on what the piece turns out to be worth.

That last point is the one to hold on to. A fee calculated as a percentage of the appraised value gives the appraiser a direct interest in a high number, which is exactly what the document is supposed to be independent of.

This is not a matter of taste. The American Society of Appraisers considers it unprofessional and unethical to contract for a fee that is a fixed percentage of the value determined, and tells consumers plainly never to use an appraiser who charges that way (ASA). Fees should be hourly, per piece, or an agreed price for the project. If someone quotes you a percentage, that alone is a reason to go elsewhere.

Expect to pay by the hour or by the piece, to be told the basis before work begins, and for a complicated item to cost more than a simple one because it takes longer.

Why is the appraised value higher than what anyone will pay me?

Because it is answering a different question, and this catches people out more than any other part of the subject.

An insurance appraisal states replacement value: what it would cost to walk into a retail shop today and buy an equivalent piece. That figure includes retail margin, and it is supposed to, because that is what your insurer would have to fund.

What a buyer will pay you is closer to wholesale, because they have to resell it. The gap between the two is not anyone being unfair. It is the difference between retail and wholesale, and it exists in every market.

Bringing a twenty-year-old insurance appraisal to a sale and expecting that number is the single most common disappointment in this business. The document was never written to answer the question being asked of it.

When do you actually need a written appraisal?

Four situations, and outside them it is usually money spent on paper.

Insuring a piece. Most insurers want a current valuation before they will schedule an item, and most want it refreshed periodically because values move.

Probate or estate division. When a piece is being valued for tax or divided between people, someone independent needs to put a number on it in writing.

Divorce or legal proceedings. Same reason.

A charitable donation above the threshold at which the IRS requires a qualified appraisal.

Notice what is not on that list: selling. You do not need a written appraisal to sell a piece, and paying for one first rarely improves what you are offered.

When is a verbal appraisal enough?

Whenever the question is "what do I have" or "what is this worth to sell."

A jeweler with the piece in hand can tell you the metal and its purity, whether the stones are natural, roughly what they weigh and grade at, whether the maker's mark is what it claims to be, and what they would pay for it. That is almost always the information people actually came in for.

It takes a few minutes, it costs nothing here, and there is no obligation to sell afterwards.

If it then turns out you need the formal document, you will at least be paying for it knowing what the piece is.

Does an appraisal prove a piece is authentic?

Not by itself, and this is worth being precise about.

An appraisal is one person's professional opinion on a date. A good one records what was examined, what tests were performed and what was relied on. It is not a certificate of authenticity and it is not a laboratory report.

For a significant diamond the document that carries weight is a grading report from an independent laboratory such as GIA, which grades the stone itself rather than valuing it. The two are complementary: the lab says what the stone is, the appraiser says what it is worth.

For signed pieces, authentication is a separate judgement again, made from the marks, the construction and the wear, by someone who handles enough of them to know what right looks like.

What to bring

Whatever paper exists. Original receipts, lab reports, service records, previous appraisals, the box. None of it is required, and all of it helps, because it narrows what has to be established from the piece alone.

If you have nothing, bring the piece anyway. Most of what we see arrives with no paperwork at all, and that is normal rather than a problem.

Start with the free one

We give free verbal appraisals across the counter on Prospect Street in La Jolla, with no obligation and no appointment needed for most visits. We will tell you what the piece is, what it is worth, and whether you actually need a written appraisal, which quite often you do not.

If the answer turns out to be that you want to sell, what we buy sets out how each category is valued. We are a licensed jewelry buyer, No. 000000356, and any figure given before a piece is seen is preliminary until it is.