Fairly Valuing and Dividing Estate Jewelry Using Professional Appraisal Standards

Let people pick what they want or if there were any instructions to give this piece to this person, separate that all out and then what feels best for your Most jewelry stores who purchase the state jewelry would be happy to give you a value on a group of jewelry price piece per piece so you can make sure that the value is fair and equitable to everyone concerned. My name is Kathleen Kimball. I'm from California. I'm the owner of George Thompson Diamond Company, a second generation jewelry store. And I've been working in the jewelry industry for about 26 years. an insurance replacement value is exactly that is the cost to replace that piece in case of lost theft damage. So that includes finding that exact proportions of the whatever stone it is, remaking that exact ring which involves a design fee, a CAD fee, the cost to find those stones, to set those stones, all the labor involved with that, and also the overhead of everybody that's involved in the purchase. When you come in to sell jewelry, it does not include all that. Typically, there's no price paid for the labor to make the piece. You're paying on simply the host. value of the gold and whatever stones are in the in the piece. most independent jewelry stores will do some type of cash value no obligation quote. the jeweler will first typically check to see if the metal is real. it's stamped and if it's not stamped anyone who should be evaluating your gold will have other ways to test it. because especially in rings the stamps get like polished out or sized out sometimes. So they'll have either an acid test or what's called an XRF machine which x-rays the metal to get the metal components. So they'll be able to tell you what the purity of the metal is and then they're going to evaluate the stones. They are going to measure the stones. They're going to you know take a look at the stone because a lot of times you can rule out any that's valuable with your eye. the value can change a lot depending on the origin of the stone and any treatments done on the stone. So if the jeweler thinks that it's something valuable, they may ask to send it to an independent laboratory and have it graded for color, clarity, and origin. And that will allow them to be more accurate. when they're giving you a price. anything maybe four or five carats or above they might ask to do that. So if they ask you that it's because they're trying to do the best for you and make sure they're giving you the best possible price for weigh the piece so a lot of the value is going to come from the weight of the metal so they're going to use a gram or penny weight scale to weigh the piece. the estate would be able to bring after everyone takes a look at the piece Or at the price they can bring the items back for a cash value 100 % the only caveat to that being is that Occasionally since gold is a commodities market it fluctuates every day every minute every hour if the price and gold changes a lot They may have a timeline based on that price. So like right now we're holding prices at seven days. So if you come back after whatever that timeline is, they may reassess and give you a different cash value for it. are shops that do jewelry consignment and typically what happens with that is the jeweler and the seller will agree on a price. The jeweler will put it in their case and then when it sells they'll have the send us check to That being said, I'm seeing this done less and less and less because no, in my experience, no one ends up happy because, you know, I have jewelry in my case that's been here for three, four, five years. No one wants to that long for their price for their for the price of their jewelry. So a lot of estates agree on a little bit less price in order to get the cash value right now. The jeweler does not have any emotional stake to the jewelry, unfortunately. You know, we didn't see it on your loved one's hand for years and years and years. So when we're evaluating it, we're evaluating it simply for the assets that are in that piece. at least a good jeweler will never want to offend you with the price that they're offering. They are simply using their knowledge and expertise to come up with a fair price for it for you. we understand that there is so much emotion tied up to this jewelry and we are not attempting to offend you. We are simply trying to find a solution that works for both you and us.