What You Must Know Before Getting A Jewelry Appraisal

Jewelry appraisal becomes important when you have beautiful jewelry pieces. Intricately crafted jewelry pieces are valuable and with time their value increases. This is the reason, why it becomes crucial to safeguard your coveted items and get your jewelry appraised for insurance. Jewelry valuation is also required for various other reasons apart from insurance.

Below are some of the important things that you must know before getting your jewelry appraised:

Why Jewelry Appraisal is required?

Jewelry appraisal in NYC is required for various reasons. Insurance is the most important reason as mentioned above. Other requirements for jewelry appraisal include estate management and reselling your pieces.

Your insurance company will need a certified appraisal document when buying coverage for your jewelry. This will decide your premium and will make sure that you are not underinsured.

Prestige Valuations is a leading appraisal company. They provide online jewelry valuation for insurance and other purposes. They also offer luxury watch and handbag appraisals.

What are the different types of appraisals?

Let’s know some of the different types of jewelry appraisals in NYC:

Fair Market Value Appraisals: Such type of appraisals are required when you want to know the estimated value of your jewelry for reselling. The appraiser will take into account the condition of the piece, metal weight, quality of stones and more such factors before determining its fair market value.

Replacement Value Appraisals: When you need an appraisal for insurance purposes, then you can go with the replacement value appraisal. This value discloses the replacement cost of your coveted piece in case something untoward happens to it. This value is normally higher than the resale value as it is the cost of a new piece similar to your item. Resale value is the cost of an old and used item.

When you go for an online jewelry valuation for insurance, the appraiser will take into account market fluctuations, insurance premiums and the fact that over time, the value of your jewlery item will increase.

Liquidation Appraisals: When you need to quickly sell your jewelry, you can go with the liquidation appraisal. You might want to sell because of estate liquidation or divorce could be the reason. The liquidation value can be lower than other appraisal values as the valuable item needs to be sold urgently.

The appraisal document will have all the details about your jewelry item, from the metal weight to the gemstones quality. Along with the information, pictures of your item too will be present. This document will prove your ownership as well.

What are the qualities to look for in an appraiser?

You need to look for a trustworthy appraisal company like Prestige Valuations. A qualified and professional appraiser must be able to appraise your jewelry without any bias. They must have done some gemological training like G.G. (Graduate Gemologist). If they have any specialities that would be great. Understanding the intricacies of all types of jewelry will be very useful in evaluating the items.

Next, you need to check if the appraiser has done any appraisal training by a recognized association like the American Society of Appraisers (ASA) or the National Association of Jewelry Appraisers. A knowledgeable and experienced appraiser will be able to evaluate your pieces credibly.

Also, you can check the reputation of the appraisal company by reading the reviews on the internet. You can also ask for recommendations from your friends and colleagues.

What details does the appraisal document include?

The appraisal document will have some very useful information mentioned in it. The report will have the purpose of valuation mentioned in it.  

The date on which the appraisal has been done will also be there and it is very useful as the value of jewelry fluctuates with time as per the market trends.

All details about your precious item will be mentioned in the report. This includes metal weight, gems quality, grades, colors and sizes of all components. Whether the gemstones are natural or synthetic? Whether they are treated or untreated? Even the type of setting of your aesthetic piece will be mentioned in the report.

Photographs of the item too will be included in the document.

After researching the history of the piece and market trends, the appraiser will evaluate the piece and determine its accurate appraisal value.