Macys appriasal service

[tommyboy]

I had the diamond ring I bought my GF appriased yesterday at Macys. THey charged 1% of the appriasal, + .5% of every dollar over 100. Mine wasnt too bad, but they are not professional, not courteous, and I dont even think well skilled.

They graded the stones I have totally diffeent than what they actually are.

Anyone have other experiences with them?>

 

[Mara]

No experience but I would never use a store like a Macys to do an appraisal. I would take it to an independent appraiser and pay the $200 or less there to get an EXPERT to clarify things.

 

[Richard Sherwood]

The practice of charging a percentage of the appraisal value as a fee has largely been dropped by the appraisal industry, as it has the possibility of encouraging "over appraising", or the appearance of it.

I'm surprised Macy's is doing this.

 

[tommyboy]

The jeweleler who i bought my ring from told me most insurance companies will accept a macys appriasal. He said it was the safest bet.

Any other good ones in NYC?

Im not saying I wasnt happy with the appriasal, my ring was appriased for 14.5k when I paid 8 total.

How much better of an appriasal could I have gotten somewhere else?

 

[Nicrez]

Tommyboy, Your ring should appraise for it's worth, and the reason is that if you are paying an insurance premium to insure it, you would be paying a lot more through out the years and you are getting ripped off.

I know of someone who had an appraiser do this for him, and when he calculated how much extra he paid, he was irritated. Turns out, this appraiser got kickbacks from insurance companies to do this.

Our stones that we looked at where hard to find, as they were fancy stones. Also we got good prices, competitive to the market prices, so one stone appraised for 15% more than our price, for cut premium and rarity of find. That's normal.

Depending where in NY you want, because Good Old Gold is in Long Island and their tests are TOP notch. Check out PS's appraiser list for NY List

A good appraiser to use is Bruce Haberman at Gemological Appraisal Labs. Also in NYC is David Wolf, but he's about $240 and hour, and Bruce charges by carat.

 

[Mara]

The high appraisal doesn't surprise me...your ring is worth what you paid for it. That is what you should be mostly concerned with. Appraising it for $14k when you paid $8k would be foolish IMO because the ring is *worth* what you can reasonably replace it for. If that is $8k, or $10k if you want to pad it a bit...great. But to insure for $14k when they will just replace it with a 'like ring' anyway that costs them way less than $14k, you don't ever SEE that $14k in terms of cash, but boy do you pay for it in premiums.