Scott Gordon Jeweler Gemologist

Here are three inquiries I’ve received this month through my website:

“I am interested in getting some of my jewelry appraised so that I can sell it.”

“I own a diamond ring and wish to sell it; first, an appraisal is needed.”

“I have a platinum and diamond wedding ring that I wish to have appraised for the purpose of selling it.”

Well, do you really need an appraisal, complete with a specific value? One problem is: there is no specific value. No matter what you own, there is always more than one way to sell it: through private sale, consignment, or outright sale to someone in the business (who might be anything from a retail jewelry store to a pawnshop, with stops in between at small “hip-pocket” dealers or brokers), or, sometimes, auction, live or on-line. Depending on which of these markets you employ and the time you allow them to work, the difference can certainly be half as much, or even more.

Next, within any single one of these markets for selling your jewelry items, a range of possible prices exists. Sales of personal property are much too few and far betweeen to yield just one magic answer to the question, “what’s it worth?” A competent appraiser will know this and, making adjustments for size and quality to the often scarce information about comparable items he or she can find, bracket the likely selling price of your item in as wide or narrow range as the data about the item dictate.

Think for a moment about how oeople actually price privately pre-owned (oh, all right, used) jewelry for sale. It is not a pure science, especially as the prospect of getting more money (from a private buyer, as opposed to a trade buyer) goes up. (This means from a possible private buyer.) Onefactor  I’ve already mentioned: the occasional nature of selling jewelry, new or used: one engagement ring maybe per lifetime, or two or three at most. This translates into how open to negotiating with your prospective buyer, a bird freshly flown in from the other one in the bush and about to alight near your hand, you will decide to be. This leads into the realm of sales psychology, which everyone in the jewelry business practices, at least to some degree. It's this: when you quote a price, and you look at the jewelry itself sitting in front of you, what sounds about right for what you see? Remember, in your case, your buyer knows you’re not a store and that the item isn’t new. That’s his or her market comparison, so you’ve got to create a sense of much better value than retail, while knowing you’re getting more, even much more, than someone buying it for re-sale will pay. So when you think within this collaborative range, can you allow a “cushion” over that without queering the deal? Is there any money in the designer’s name that you can take advantage of? Can you keep the dollars at a psychological threshold (for instance, $985)?

Some people want me to write an appraisal document for Retail Replacement Value. This is an expression drawn from the world of insurance and therefore highly subject to doubt and confusion, or contempt. These feelings are exactly the outcome if the appraisal is used as an opening gambit in a negotiation to set the proper re-sale market price for your jewelry item.

I might mention that there was a jewelry consignment shop here in Oklahoma City a few years ago that worked this way: an appraiser (who had no appraisal training) provided an insurance document (creating the impression of objectivity) and the shop simply cut the number in half to arrive at the price.  – whether selling or asking, I am not sure. Assuming no negotiating, why not just appraise item's value in that shop at that number, the one for which it actually sold? And if that number was only a starting point, perhaps after style and condition resulted in too slow a sale, why not use the real selling price as the  item's real value?

What is straight to the point is that utilizing Retail Replacement Value for re-sale appraisals is taking the long way home. Professional jewelry appraisal groups do not allow it, because they require us to learn how an appraisal document will be used; and then require us to present a value or range of values, that matches that use. We might use such language as Marketable Cash Value for this use, defining time and the kind of buyer (trade versus private) or even a range of values for each kind of buyer.

Sound too complicated? One way out is to offer you consultation, which I have described in detail elsewhere. This is designed to give you an idea of the range of the most likely selling prices for your jewelry, in a discussion in which I strategize with you the best way for you to sell it. This can be coupled with a written Quality Description, which gives buyer and seller an idea of what they're talking about (along with the photography I already provide).

In the next thirty days, I will implement this optional additional service, as I convert my appraisal practice to much more powerful and sophisticated professional appraisal software than I use now.

 I welcome your comments or questions!