Help! My appraiser and I don''t agree on color grade

[pixley]

Hi all. I finally received my appraisal back last week after waiting for the appraiser to gather information on how to evaluate my stone, due to his lack of familiarity with cushion cuts and the color grade on his appraisal came back a G while the GIA report says that it's an F. He never did wish to see my GIA report, although I offered it and the appraisal was completed and printed when I arrived. When I asked to see my stone up against his masters, he placed it between a D and a G and did not have an E or an F master. I am very color sensitive and could easily detect more colour in his G stone and I told him so. He replied that he gets his eyes color tested every X number of years and wasn't willing to go beyond that. He said it's possible it's a high G and I got the sense that he prides himself on being stricter than the GIA. My question to our appraisers is, what recourse do I have for asking him to reconsider his grade? I am bothered by this report and disagree with him, but moreover, he doesn't have an F to compare it to, so any argument about the color grade is a bit difficult given that there is not a F to put it up against. Meanwhile, I'm out the cost of an appraisal that I don't agree with, and he's valued my stone as a G as far as insurance coverage goes. Is there anything I can do outside of paying another appraiser who has a complete set of masters?

 

[diagem]

Date: 3/2/2008 2:07:36 AM
Author:pixley
Hi all. I finally received my appraisal back last week after waiting for the appraiser to gather information on how to evaluate my stone, due to his lack of familiarity with cushion cuts and the color grade on his appraisal came back a G while the GIA report says that it''s an F. He never did wish to see my GIA report, although I offered it and the appraisal was completed and printed when I arrived. When I asked to see my stone up against his masters, he placed it between a D and a G and did not have an E or an F master. I am very color sensitive and could easily detect more colour in his G stone and I told him so. He replied that he gets his eyes color tested every X number of years and wasn''t willing to go beyond that. He said it''s possible it''s a high G and I got the sense that he prides himself on being stricter than the GIA. My question to our appraisers is, what recourse do I have for asking him to reconsider his grade? I am bothered by this report and disagree with him, but moreover, he doesn''t have an F to compare it to, so any argument about the color grade is a bit difficult given that there is not a F to put it up against. Meanwhile, I''m out the cost of an appraisal that I don''t agree with, and he''s valued my stone as a G as far as insurance coverage goes. Is there anything I can do outside of paying another appraiser who has a complete set of masters?

Interesting...,

You are saying the insurance Co. relies on an appraiser with limited tools (referring to the ''master stones'') and disregards the GIA report?

 

[monarch64]

Very interesting thread...

 

[arjunajane]

Hi Pixley,
I realize that this is not very constructive, but I just need to vent and say that your appraiser seems abit of a jerk! >
Stricter isn''t always better..
I''m sorta just giving you a bump, as I would like to see someone with more knowledge to weigh in.
I hope you can have this resolved quickly,

 

[cwj]

Do insurance companys really trust an appraiser form a store more than GIA?

 

[elmo]

If you haven''t asked him already, I''d ask if he''d update his report to say that the stone is GIA graded as F, and for him to establish value as an F. If he won''t and it bothers you, you could get a second appraisal, or you could ask him if he''d submit to a mutually agreed independent lab like AGS or GCAL as a tie-breaking third opinion. It''s only money

.

 

[Steel]

Date: 3/2/2008 2:07:36 AM
Author:pixley
Hi all. I finally received my appraisal back last week after waiting for the appraiser to gather information on how to evaluate my stone, due to his lack of familiarity with cushion cuts and the color grade on his appraisal came back a G while the GIA report says that it''s an F. He never did wish to see my GIA report, although I offered it and the appraisal was completed and printed when I arrived. When I asked to see my stone up against his masters, he placed it between a D and a G and did not have an E or an F master. I am very color sensitive and could easily detect more colour in his G stone and I told him so. He replied that he gets his eyes color tested every X number of years and wasn''t willing to go beyond that. He said it''s possible it''s a high G and I got the sense that he prides himself on being stricter than the GIA. My question to our appraisers is, what recourse do I have for asking him to reconsider his grade? I am bothered by this report and disagree with him, but moreover, he doesn''t have an F to compare it to, so any argument about the color grade is a bit difficult given that there is not a F to put it up against. Meanwhile, I''m out the cost of an appraisal that I don''t agree with, and he''s valued my stone as a G as far as insurance coverage goes. Is there anything I can do outside of paying another appraiser who has a complete set of masters?

Hi Pixley,

My first issue is highlighted in yellow.

My second issue is highlighted in yellow.

If this ''my eyes are colour tested'' "appraiser" did not specicify both of these issues to you before accepting your stone then you should dispute payment. How can he appraise a cushion, GIA''d as an F if he does not know much about cushions and doesn''t have a bloody F master! OMG, I would cause HELL if he did not tell me this upfront!

The following smilie illustrates how my conversation with this ''appraiser'' would go.....

 

[elle_chris]

I don''t understand how he could have graded it correctly without E and F master stones. That''s just crazy.

Also, not to come down on you or anything, but when you find out he didn''t have the means to grade the color accurately, why not end it right there?
There''s just no way he could give you a proper appraisal without being able to grade color. Also, grats to him for having his eyes color tested but that doesn''t
exclude him from needing to have the proper tools for grading.

Who is this guy if you don''t mind me asking?

 

[Modified Brilliant]

Okay, I'll weigh in.

I have no idea what this appraiser uses for protocol, procedures, and having face to face conversation with his clients.

I never EVER start an assignment without having a short or long discussion on what, how, why, and for what reason
I am doing something. You should never leave an appraiser's office without having all of your questions and concerns
answered 100% to your satisfaction.

Did he inform you PRIOR to your session what his process was?

This is the difficulty of not being present during your appraisal. You miss out on alot of crucial information.

No one is perfect..please remember that. Normally, however (in most cases, not always) I will agree with GIA/AGS color grading.

In this case specifically, GIA had the masters to get the job done correctly in an ideal laboratory environment.

I believe that after his analysis, he should have taken into consideration the GIA color grade and then discussed his reasons and logic,

possibly reconsidering his initial decision.


Jeff Averbook,GG
Graduate Gemologist since 1986

www.metrojewelryappraisers.com

 

[pixley]

Wow, where to start. Thank you for the support.

Diagem - I don't really know whether the insurance co. will rely on the appraisal over the GIA report, all I know is that the GIA report doesn't place a dollar value on the stone and the appraisal, lame as it may be, does.

arjunajane - Thanx for the bump. I hope Neil or one of our local PS appraisers can chime in after the weekend

cwj - I dunno, but I hope not (at least not this guy)

elmo - Good idea, I will ask him to adjust the appraisal to reflect the GIA grades, and failing that, will send to one of our PS appraisers before I send to Leon for a proper appraisal.

steel - LOVE the "appraiser my backside" animation. My husband is ready to bring that to life. To clarify, I did learn that he was unfamiliar with cushion cuts after I dropped off the stone, when my appraisal went from what I was told would be a 1 day turnaround to a 1 week turnaround. After the first day, I called to see if the appraisal was done and his assistant said it would take longer as he was waiting for more information on how to evaluate my stone from a colleague of his in Chicago who regularly deals in antique stones. I suppose at that point I should have just retrieved my stone and gone to plan B, but I certainly didn't know he didn't have a full set of masters.

elle_chris - Don't worry, he's not a PS appraiser. I live on Vancouver Island and was trying to avoid the trouble & expense of sending it across the border before it was properly insured. I had no idea he didn't have a full set of masters and the stone was left on his premises, received by his assistant who never mentioned he was new to cushions when I delivered the stone. For the record, he also designs and sells jewelery and I had seen him prior to my purchase while I was searching for a stone. He showed me an antique brooch encrusted with OMBs, so I took it to mean he was familiar with old cuts. The appraisal was done by the time I arrived, so not paying didn't really seem like an option by then.

In retrospect, I guess I should have asked for an appraisal based on the documentation accompanying the stone, instead of one based on his own ego, since I never questioned the documentation. I did call during the week and offered to bring in the documentation and I also explained the history of the stone to his assistant but she said he prefers to take a tabula rasa approach to the appraisal. Probably my fault for not disputing that approach, but I will discuss it with him on Tues when he reopens. I realize color is a subjective grade based on the viewer, and that there is a continuum, blah-blah-blah, but I was a little dumbfounded at the time, so just paid and fled. After I (reluctantly) told my husband about the incident, he went

and told me to sort it out with him. So I will, but ick.

 

[pixley]

Jeff,
Thanks for weighing in! I guess one of the reasons I didn''t ask him to re-do or change the appraisal at the time, is that I feared it would be unethical of him to change the appraisal after the fact, but you''re right, no one is perfect and the GIA lab graders are in an ideal environment with a full set of masters and see hundreds if not thousands of cushions at a time. This is my first diamond purchase, so I''ll cop to being totally clueless regarding the appraisal process, thus I didn''t discuss his approach and lay out my expectations with him in advance. But I will this week.

Must go make waffles now. But thanks in advance for any further ammo (I mean support) you can provide for my battle next week.

 

[ksinger]

Date: 3/2/2008 12:01:05 PM
Author: pixley
Jeff,
Thanks for weighing in! I guess one of the reasons I didn''t ask him to re-do or change the appraisal at the time, is that I feared it would be unethical of him to change the appraisal after the fact, but you''re right, no one is perfect and the GIA lab graders are in an ideal environment with a full set of masters and see hundreds if not thousands of cushions at a time. This is my first diamond purchase, so I''ll cop to being totally clueless regarding the appraisal process, thus I didn''t discuss his approach and lay out my expectations with him in advance. But I will this week.

Must go make waffles now. But thanks in advance for any further ammo (I mean support) you can provide for my battle next week.

Any more unethical than to proclaim you can grade color without a full set of masters, or assess shape with no real prior knowledge of that shape? Shoot, I don''t have a full set of masters either, can I grade the color of your stone for you?? You can be forgiven for not laying out expectations, and really shouldn''t HAVE to - YOU''VE never done this before!! He does it every day, or so he says. HE should have told YOU up front, that cushions are not his strong suit, and let YOU decide. This guy''s ego is clearly more in charge of things than his brain. Cushions aside, how can he grade ANY stone properly without the full set of necessary tools? I can''t believe that this is SOP - to not have masters when grading color...

You have every right to be steamed. Keep us posted on how it goes!

 

[Missrocks]

If you just need the appraisal for insurance purposes, wasn''t the place you purchased from able to provide you with that? That wouldn''t provide a third party opinion, but I''m sure they would provide you a correct value for the insurance coverage you need in the meantime.

Also I must comment, who has a color set like that?? D is not nessesary- obviously if its whiter than E, it must be D. Most partial color sets go E, G, I, K, so on.

Good luck with everything.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

You can insure with your cert plus your sales receipt as long as the ring is described on the sales receipt and matches the cert. I wouldn''t want to pay an inflated insurance premium anyway.

 

[denverappraiser]

Just got back from a 3 day ski trip at Beaver Creek. I’m tanned and rested. Life is good. I love living in Colorado.

I disagree with the appraisers methodology here. He may indeed be giving the correct answer but it sounds like he’s answering the wrong question.

As mentioned above, stricter is not necessarily better. It depends on the purpose of the appraisal so lets answer this question first. As Jeff points out, this should be one of the first things an appraiser asks you and often it involves a significant discussion so that both you and the appraiser understand the task at hand. Did you have such a discussion? What was the purpose?

With most pre-loss insurance type appraisals, which is most jewelry appraisals, the primary objective is to provide documentation and funding to allow your insurance company to replace your item with another of like kind and quality in the case of a loss. Put another way, what exactly do you have and what is it reasonably likely to cost to replace?

At this point, I’m going to inject a bit of appraisal theory. Bear with me. Every item of value has ‘value characteristics’ associated with it. This might be the make and model of a car, the year that an artist painted a particular painting, the age of a chair, the number of bathrooms in a house or the weight of a diamond. Anything that makes yours the same, better or worse than some comparable item is a value characteristic. When the insurance company goes out into the world to replace your stone, what they are doing is finding another one that has comparable value characteristics and a big piece of the job of the appraiser is to document these so that both you and the company agree on what they are prior to binding the policy.

Part two of this appraisal theory primer is about ‘scope of work’. This is a decision made by the appraiser immediately following the purpose discussion and it’s where they decide what is necessary to meet the required objectives. Not every assignment requires every possible test and, since appraisers routinely charge by the hour, it’s appropriate to exclude those things that don’t apply as being outside the scope of work.

OK, so what do you have? You’ve got a diamond with a GIA report describing a few things about it. Presumably GIA called it an F and the appraiser called it a G. What are the value characteristics here? The easy ones are things like weight, clarity, natural diamond, etc. Apparently everyone agrees with these and I’ll get to color in a sec but what about ‘GIA certified’? That costs extra right? It makes a stone easier to sell for a dealer, right? Both buyers and sellers of stones routinely use this attribute as a selling point or one of the specs for their purchase. It’s a value characteristic.

Let’s assume, for arguments sake, that the appraiser is right and that GIA made an error. It should have been graded a G. Have we changed the value characteristics? Yes, but we haven’t changed the above one. It’s still accompanied by a GIA report that calls it an F and it’s replacement should have this same attribute. Sticky issue huh? So when this hits the replacement jeweler, the minimum requirement will still be for a cushion cut/GIA/F/VS2 plus whatever other specs you’ve included like cutting, who made it or whatever because that IS what you have. Now we’ve added a new one. Some appraiser thinks it’s a G based on his ‘stricter than GIA’ color scale involving a D&G master. I’ll assume this is correct but is it a value characteristic? I suppose it might be but I’m a pretty high profile appraiser and I don’t recall ever having either a buyer or seller specify my opinion as one of the ‘attributes’ of a stone (people often specify meeting my approval as a requirement of a purchase but that’s part of the deal, not part of the product). It is possible, but it doesn’t seem like you value it terribly highly and I suspect the seller isn’t even aware of it. That doesn’t sound like a value characteristic to me.

So what does all of this mean to you, the buyer? The appraisal should list the attributes that give it value and should value the item accordingly as it relates to the appropriate marketplace. This is true of every single useful appraisal no matter what it’s for. GIA-F clearly is an attribute, it should be mentioned and the value conclusion should reflect this attribute. Should they mention that the appraisers in-house grading differs? This is where the purpose becomes important and part of the reason for the little interview at the beginning of the appraisal session. If you were looking for their approval of the stone, then yes this is an important issue although this isn’t an insurance related topic. If the problem is that the stone has changed since the lab exam or that the report was altered or counterfeit, yes. Otherwise it very well may not be. Depending on the purpose, this might be outside of the scope of work. This will depend on you and that initial discussion. If you told them to do this, then it’s reasonable that they did it after all.

Never is it unethical for an appraiser to reconsider the issues and make corrections if necessary. By all means discuss it with them. We all make mistakes. They may not do what you want but it doesn’t hurt to ask and it’s up to them to defend their position.

Neil Beaty
GG(GIA) ICGA(AGS) NAJA
Professional Appraisals in Denver

 

[pixley]

Ack! I just typed a detailed reply and lost it - fooey.

Anyways, THANK YOU, NEIL for the detailed response. I will indeed go back and ask him if he could kindly note the attributes accompanying the stone on his appraisal and use that information to document my stone for insurance purposes. And no, I certainly don''t want an inflated appraisal and higher premiums, I just want it noted that any replacement should be the equivalent of what is documented on my cert. Is there some sort of term or lingo to describe the type of appraisal that you mentioned in your post as opposed to the type he performed? It would be good to get it straight so I don''t have any further misunderstandings with him. Thanks so much again.

 

[denverappraiser]

The lingo is part of the problem. I call this an ‘insurance replacement appraisal’ and when I teach students this is the terminology I use but different people use different words and that particular phrase is misunderstood by lots and lots of folks. Just tell them what you are trying to accomplish. Clients aren’t expected to know the insider lingo, appraisers are supposed to make themselves understood by their clients and intended users (that's lingo for what we call the insurance companies). What I said in the last post applies to pretty much every appraisal for every product from used cars to houses by the way. I’m pretty sure that all we have here is a failure to communicate. When people pick on appraisers it’s usually because they didn’t do enough work, not because they did too much and I take this as a sign that yours really is trying to do a good job for you.

It’s not especially unusual for customers to want to know an appraisers opinion on the lab grading. This can be either as part of the shopping process or because they count the whole diamond business as a scam and they’re checking one source against another, presumably because a consensus is more trustworthy. We get this a LOT. It seems like this is the question your appraiser answered is: Do you agree with GIA? He said no. Fine. I wouldn’t begin to say whether he’s right or wrong but am just pointing out that, based on your prior post, this doesn’t seem to be the question you were asking. You already knew what it was. I’d be willing to bet that you already know what it’s worth. What you need assistance with is the documentation packet so that your insurer knows what it is and what it’s worth.

Neil Beaty
GG(GIA) ICGA(AGS) NAJA
Professional Appraisals in Denver

 

[pixley]

Date: 3/2/2008 4:43:14 PM
Author: denverappraiser
The lingo is part of the problem. I call this an ‘insurance replacement appraisal’ and when I teach students this is the terminology I use but different people use different words and that particular phrase is misunderstood by lots and lots of folks. Just tell them what you are trying to accomplish. Clients aren’t expected to know the insider lingo, appraisers are supposed to make themselves understood by their clients and intended users (that's lingo for what we call the insurance companies). What I said in the last post applies to pretty much every appraisal for every product from used cars to houses by the way. I’m pretty sure that all we have here is a failure to communicate. When people pick on appraisers it’s usually because they didn’t do enough work, not because they did too much and I take this as a sign that yours really is trying to do a good job for you.

It’s not especially unusual for customers to want to know an appraisers opinion on the lab grading. This can be either as part of the shopping process or because they count the whole diamond business as a scam and they’re checking one source against another, presumably because a consensus is more trustworthy. We get this a LOT. It seems like this is the question your appraiser answered is: Do you agree with GIA? He said no. Fine. I wouldn’t begin to say whether he’s right or wrong but am just pointing out that, based on your prior post, this doesn’t seem to be the question you were asking. You already knew what it was. I’d be willing to bet that you already know what it’s worth. What you need assistance with is the documentation packet so that your insurer knows what it is and what it’s worth.

Neil Beaty
GG(GIA) ICGA(AGS) NAJA
Professional Appraisals in Denver

Exactamundo! I think if I put it in those terms, I can be assured that I get what I need, and he won't get his nose out of joint regarding the whole color argument surrounding his dinky master set ('cause I don't even want to go there with him). You rock, Neil!