Jewelry Appraisal Tips - Is you appraisal real.

Carol Cheney, Director of Insurance Services for Harling’s Jewellers in Vancouver, BC shares some valuable tips when it comes time to get your jewelry appraised. Watch Video

Carol Cheney: We recommend every three to five years, insurance jewelry appraisals are appraising a piece of jewelry that’s made of commodities so gold is a commodity. In 2002, the exchange rate was 1.62 – it’s significantly different now and that affects the price and diamonds are traded in U.S. dollars so the price of diamonds has been all over the map. If you update every three to five years you should have yourself covered.

Well, there’s a couple ways, the easiest way now is that a lot of diamonds sold, in particular Canadian diamonds are sold with an identification number inscribed on the girdle. When you buy a diamond you get a certificate which maps out all the inclusions on the diamond and it has a certificate number that is actually engraved on the diamond itself. You can’t see it unless under a microscope, so that’s one way.

The second way is to ask the jeweler to take the time to show you your diamond under a microscope so that you can see the inclusions because all diamonds have them, and there will be something identifying about that diamond that you ought to be able to check when your ring is returned to you. We’re happy to do that for people that are concerned.

A qualified appraiser should appraise your jewelry and there are only a limited number of appraisers that have a designation – it’s much like a CIP for insurance people, you spend ten years working to get that designation and when you’ve got it it goes behind everything. So we see tons of appraisals that come across our desk that have no designation. There is no penalty for creating an appraisal, putting a value on it and signing your name to it and using it as a selling tool and it can be completely false. There’s no penalty whatsoever. The only way to at least ensure that you stand a fighting chance of getting a good appraisal is to use a qualified appraiser – and they have, I believe, five designations that are recognized within North America. It costs a lot of money to get these designations so it’s not cost effective for most companies to keep them on staff. They don’t have the business to keep them full time. Most appraisers contract their services out to different retail jewelers.