Jewelers charge for evaluating your piece?? :blink:

[king-ghidorah]

I found this tidbit in alt.treasure.hunting newsgroup

Found my first real ring this weekend.
>> I had it looked at today, and the valuer confirmed they were something
>> other than diamond. He wouldn't tell me what, or how much the ring
>> was worth without me paying $95


First time I have heard of a jeweler charging someone to evaluate a piece. Times must be hard. I would've told that person,"Have a nice day" and walked out with MY ring in MY hand.

 

[therick]

I am a certified diamond appraiser. I received my degree from the G.I.A. (Gemological Institute of America) in 1985. It took me over a year and a half to take all of the correspondence courses including a week long seminar in order to pass the final exam and become "certified". The total cost out of my pocket was a little over 3,000 dollars in 1985 dollars not including all of the nights and weekends I lost studying. If I was still in the biz, I would have to charge some sort of fee for an appraisal, after all that is why I took the course in the first place...... to be most knowledgeable person in the profession. There are many, many factors to consider in order to give a true and proper appraisal of a diamond. You just can't loupe it and give a correct value in 30 seconds. What you are paying for in an appraisal is for my knowledge. The same reason a Doctor charges for an "office visit" or a professional photographer charges a "creation fee". You are paying for that guys knowledge and his reputation as a "certified diamond appraiser" and there are several different, credible schools of certification. I understand that maybe the guy was looking for a "ball park" value but if I gave out ball park appraisals to everyone that came in through my door then who would pay for a legitimate, insurable appraisal? I can't fault the guy for asking for the 95.00 fee, just understand where he is coming from and maybe you'll get an approximate value at another location. BUT, you may not be able to rely on the free one.

Just my humble opinion coming from the other side.

Sincerely,

therick

 

[Eddie in Poulsbo]

What do you mean by insurable appraisals? I found a ladies 14kt wedding band and engagement ring with eleven diamonds in it about four years ago. Just for my own personal reasons, curiosity mainly, I took it to a jeweler and paid $65 to have it appraised. His appraised value was $1500, but I bet I couldn't sell it for that much. I guess my next question to you is what is the difference between appraised value and retail value? I bet I would be lucky to get $50 for it at a pawn shop, but I would never do that to begin with. Thanks for any help.

Eddie

 

[therick]

An insurance company will want your piece of jewelry appraised by a professional in the field. A Certified Diamond Appraiser will be fine for diamond encrusted pieces but you may have to find a Graduate Gemologist for pieces with colored stones. Obviously, insurance companies base their premiums on "replacement value"........ the more valuable or costly to replace....... the higher your premium will be. In the case of your wedding band, the 1500.00 appraisal is the approximate value to replace the item at average retail. The wholesale value will be much less and of course the pawn value will be way under wholesale value. The pawn broker is buying stuff from people as cheaply as possible as he has to then resale the piece in order to make his money. He can obviously low ball the customer as most of them come to pawn brokers as a last resort, their are down on their luck and have no other options. He has to assume that the customer will never be back so he has to buy a low as possible.

Getting back to the insurance company, the insurance co. will take the appraisal as an accurate value of the piece and then using all kinds of charts will then assign a premium to that piece in case it should get lost or stolen. One 14k gold wedding set with 11 diamonds may be appraised at 500.00 and yet another 14k gold wedding set with 11 diamonds may be appraised at 10,000. How is an insurance co. going to know the difference with out the appraisal? They don't know..... so the appraisal is really protecting you in case a replacement has to be made.

Take the same scenario and use cars instead of jewelry.

I go to Allstate and insure my '72 Chevy Malibu with 165,000 miles on it. They look at a chart and base my pmts on the information that I have given them. The car gets totaled and I walk in for my check and they pay me 2,500 for replacement value. I freak out because my Malibu had a convertible top, 4sp, bucket seats and a fire breathin' 350 big block completely restored from front to back. One of only 4,853 ever made. They apologize because I wasn't paying premiums for such a valuable car. I would have to have an appraisal from an antique car appraiser in order to prove the value. They would then thank me for my business and send me on my way.

Any how, I'm sorry that this is so long. It's a much easier conversation face to face. Feel free to ask any other questions and I'll try to keep the answers shorter if possible.

therick

 

[Rick(ND)]

I found a diamond ring a couple months ago and thought it was a fake, but our club has a tester and it showed it was a diamond, but I took it to a jeweler as i didnt trust the tester. She looked at it and said it was a diamond, but a old cut diamond she called it. Now i ask what it is worth and told me the appraisal would be $35, but unless i was insuring it she didn't recommend it, but said it was a good diamond and roughly a $800-$1000 ring. The appraisal she said they had to measure each diamond which I only had one in mine and weigh it out of the ring to get the correct Karret and remount it which takes time so I thought the charge was very reasonable. I was told the crown needed to be replaced as they are wore and needed work so it wouldnt fall out, but would cost around $200 so it is not on the wifes finger anymore and in a display untill I can get it remounted in a new setting for her.
I feel I got excellent service and got a rough idea of what i had and didnt cost anything.

 

[therick]

You don't have to take a diamond out of the mount to get the weight of the stone. There are very precise measurements you can get from the stone in order to come up with the carat weight. You measure the table, the girth, the pavilion, and the crown and apply these to mathematical equations and you can get really, really close (if not spot on) to the actual carat weight of that stone. Imagine that you find a diamond cocktail ring with 32 stones of different sizes....... you think I have to take out EACH stone to get a total weight? That'd be nuts.

By old cut the jeweler was probably saying that it was an old "mine cut" or "European cut" stone. This means that the crown of the stone (the distance between the girdle and the table or top part of the stone) is higher than stones that are cut today (modern cut). The reason for this is that they discovered in the 40's (I think, dates get a little fuzzy sometimes) that diamonds with smaller crowns gave off better fire and sparkle. Much more pleasing to the eye.....so the older mine cut standard was abandoned for the newer "Ideal cut" diamond.

Crowns and prongs do wear out. I'd definitely replace the head and prongs in order to wear it. Nothing more depressing to see an empty crown where a diamond used to be........ and I've seen them many times. Keep the questions coming.

therick

 

[Mike Hillis]

Hi Rick,

Enjoyed this thread. Learned some more good stuff.

Question about diamond resale. Any good way to resale the diamonds from rings turned in for scrap gold? With gold prices being so high these past few months there was good money in scrap gold. What would one do with the diamonds from those rings???

Thanks,

Mike

 

[therick]

You have to get lucky enough to find a private buyer that wants exactly what you have to offer. It's difficult but it can be done with some luck and word of mouth. I'd try to let all of my personal contacts know what I had and how much I felt I'd like to get for it. Don't try to get rich as it's "found" money so I'd consider any reasonable offer.

The next thing you can do........and I've done this myself.......is take some of your scrap gold to a jeweler and have a nice free form nugget made for a necklace. Then take some of the loose diamonds and have them mounted randomly in the piece and give it as a gift. I did one several years back for my wife but instead of diamonds I used our kids' birthstones. She loves it so much she rarely takes it off.

My goal is to one day take a bunch of small, loose diamonds in various sizes to a local jeweler and have them mounted into a man's nugget style ring so that I can wear it myself. The gaudier the better.

These are just a few ideas as to what you can do with loose stones. Use your imagination as I prefer to remount them and keep them rather than "give them away".

Thanks,
therick

 

[king-ghidorah]

I enjoyed this thread too. I learned a few things.

 

[Jackpine Savage]

For people that want to scrap out gold rings and keep the stones. If the ring is in very good condition sell it on ebay as a mount or whatever they call it. Rings that are ready to have the buyers own stone mounted sell very quickly at much above scrap value. I sold one I had found with the center stone missing but with small baguette diamonds for a very nice price!

Tom

 

[therick]

n/t

 

[therick]

n/t

 

[Jackpine Savage]

forgot I still had it on the puter. Pretty ring

 

[therick]

n/t

 

[Mike Hillis]

n/t

 

[JJ]

therick, I'm feeling the urge to send you $95 just for reading your post. Very good info!