Fair price for appraisal...

[Eclipse]

I recently inherited several diamonds and would like to get them appriased. I was wondering what a fair rate would be to pay to have this done. Is there an industry standard hourly rate, do rates vary among different appraisers? How long should it take to appraise each stone? etc...

The stones are not set and loose, cut, they look very nice, but i''m uncertain of their value.

Thanks!

 

[elmo]

One of the appraisers here will give you more astute advice. But a couple things occurred to me when I read this: depending on how many several is, after finding someone with impeccable credentials that I trust I'd try to get this priced for the job and not per stone or per hour. Also note that if you don't have someone local with the proper background who you want to do this and you want someone out of town to do this, be careful with how you establish a value for insuring the shipment. I'd rather have too much protection than not enough; also, you'd probably need some sort of at least rough documentation of what these are in case of a claim. Also unless you're planning to keep everything, I'd want to have an idea of what the current "wholesale" value is in addition to retail pricing.

 

[Richard Sherwood]

Appraiser's rates usually run between $60 to $200 per hour, with most falling in the $90 to $150 per hour neighborhood.

A lot will depend on how large and how fine a quality the diamonds are as to how much you will pay to have them appraised. A 3.00 carat E color internally flawless takes a lot longer to appraise than a .50 carat J color SI1, and consequently entails a larger appraisal fee.

A good first step would be to take them to a jeweler or appraiser and have them checked to make sure they're genuine diamonds, and then get an idea of how large they are, and whether they're low, medium or high quality. This is easy to do, and most jewelers or appraisers wouldn't even charge for it.

Then you could have an appraiser give you an estimate up front as to appraisal fee. Or you could post your findings on here and some of the appraisers will probably give you an idea (most likely via pm or email) how much it would cost you to have them appraised.

 

[Eclipse]

Thank you Richard and Elmo. I actually decided that i am only going to get 1 appraised for resale, and keep the rest. I did get a quote from an appraiser and theiur rate was $105 and that it would take up to 40 minutes. They said they would give "court ready" certified documentation of the quote that would more than suffice as proof of the estimate or for insurance purposes, in addition to a firescope image (i think that's what they called it). Based upon what you said, their quote falls within the range, i just wanted to make sure of this.
Thanks