What Should I do to sell my diamond

[mmullen68]

I have a loose round brilliant diamond that I would like to sell within the next few months but I do not have any paperwork for the stone. I only have the information on the color, clarity etc. that the guy i bought it from gave me years ago. In hind sight i wouldn't have bought a stone that way without certification but i was young and it wasn't greatly planned out so lesson learned. He had owned a couple pawn shops and thats how he acquired it so i dont have any background info besides the grades he told me and we lost contact over the years.


Should I just get the diamond certified by sending it directly to GIA? from what I've looked up it seems the cost involved would be over $100 but less than $200 to do this but correct me if i'm wrong. OR Are there any other easier/cheaper options I could use to ensure I'm giving correct info and getting a fair price and where should i go for those options and expect to pay? Sorry if these questions are basic but i'm not knowledgeable about diamonds or jewelry, let alone selling it.

A while ago a jewlery store told me it was real and about 1.18 carats which was .03 less than what i thought so I just don't trust the other categories enough to feel confident in pricing it or selling it. It is a pretty stone imo and others have said the same.


Here are the options i figure i have and the problems with both.

1. list diamond somewhere online and or classifieds and sell direct to someone

If i were to sell to someone directly I wouldn't think that most people would trust spending a a couple thousand dollars with someone they don't know without some official grading paperwork and to be honest I wouldn't want to sell something to someone who did decide to trust me and have it turn out that ANY of the information I gave them was incorrect. I also cant make any comparisons to try and come up with a price to charge if i'm not confident in what i have to sell.

2. find a local jewelry buyer and hopefully not resort to a pawn shop

I assume i would get less money doing this right off the bat and on top of that i don't know any jewelers so don't have a place to go that i trust wouldnt further undervalue the diamond by saying its lower quality than it is. I have also heard of people going to well known shops in my area and not being satisfied with what they were told or what they bought, pricing, value etc.. so i just want to avoid looking dumb with wrong info and/or getting taken advantage of

Any advice on what i should do and go as far as getting paperwork and good places to list/sell would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

[kenny]

I'd send it to GIA and get their full report. (they have a few different ones)
You do not need to pay extra to line the pockets of a jeweler; GIA will deal with the public.
If possible hand carry it into a GIA lab in NYC or Carlsbad CA.
Shipping can be problematic.
You don't know what it is worth, so you don't know what to insure it for.
Even if you insured it for, say, $15,000 and USPS lost is they won't pay a claim without proof of value, such as a recent receipt.

Then I'd sell it directly to the public using something like https://loupetroop.com
You'll always get less by selling it to a reseller because there are 3 mouths to feed instead of 2.

Pricing is a can of worms and IMO an appraisal is little help.
IMO appraisals are meaningless.
Every white diamond I've bought from reputable sellers came with an "independent appraisal" telling me it's 'worth' around 40% more than I JUST paid! GMAFB!

To price it I'd just find similar stones online at places like Bluenile, which has a massive database of diamonds.

Cut is another pricing can of worms.
Plug these four numbers from the GIA report into the HCA: Depth %, Table %, Crown Angle in degrees, and Pavilion Angle in degrees.
https://www.pricescope.com/tools/hca

If it scores under 2 I'd price it 75% of what a Bluenile Signature Ideal (their best cut) diamond would cost with your diamond's carat/color/clarity.
The higher over 2 the HCA score is the lower I'd price it.
How much you'll let it go for after negotiation is your business.
If it doesn't sell fast enough for you, lower the price.

If the HCA score is much above 2 you may consider paying for a recut, since it's 1,18 ct.
That's 0.18 ct you could sacrifice to better light performance before falling below that magic 1.0 ct weight.
For a recut I'd contact Brian Gavin of www.briangavindiamonds.com
Recut for a 1 ct. recut is around $300 IIRC.
Of course after the recut you'd need a new GIA report.

Good luck.

 

[mmullen68]

Thanks alot Kenny, your reply was extremely helpful. Sounds like i'll be working to get it certified as soon as i can. That stinks about having to ship it, I didnt think much about that. I wish they had more actual locations where it could be dropped off but i may have to just send it hope I dont run into problems. I'll look into the best way to package it etc. Thanks again for your help.

 

[denverappraiser]

Not surprisingly, I disagree with Kenny above on several key items. I think professional assistance can be very helpful in this and in many areas. This includes making the decision if you should recut it and/or get GIA involved as well as pricing and market selection.

GIA paperwork on a 1.18 is going to cost you about $200 (including shipping and insurance) and take about a month. That will tell you several of the datapoints you want, but won’t do much on what to with it. Whether or not this will be useful as a selling or pricing aid depends on the details. Yes, you can advertise it at a high price, see if it flies, and adjust your price downward depending on the results. Not everyone has the patience or skills for that but it’s true that no commission is involved.

Another strategy is to hire an expert to help you grade it, evaluate the condition, help decide on the appropriate marketplace to fit your situation, what if any repairs need to be done, and possibly even assist with things like dealing with GIA, shipping, insurance, security, pricing, and so on. If needed they can probably even give you a valuation report.

 

[AdaBeta27]

If you go the "expert" route, it's my $0.02 that anyone other than one of the appraisers listed in Pricescope will not add credibility or value to the report. There are exceptions, but if you want to market it to national audience, then pick a national name. Personally, unless I had a nationally known local appraiser nearby, I'd send it to GIA. I bought one stunning ring on ebay that had no paperwork except a local gem appraiser's appraisal. But, I used to live in that city, knew of their work, and I knew that person to be an old-school strict grader, so I bought the ring. I was not disappointed. But, I was only bidder, got it for low opening bid, and I was that seller's needle-in-a-haystack buyer had faith in that report from an "unknown" local appraiser.

Since you have no current appraisal on it, I suppose you could, for shipping purposes, get a local jeweler to give you an estate evaluation that would give you the rough specs and close to a wholesale cost. Then use that for your valuation for USPS insurance. Send it USPS registered mail.

Recut: The local jeweler, a good one, can probably give you an educated guess about the cut grade. If the cut grade is low, and the clarity is high, then maybe you'd want to consider having it recut. I had one pawn shop diamond recut to a near-H&A by Brian Gavin. My goal was retain as much weight as possible but improve the performance. I'm pleased with the results, but in retrospect I might have been just as happy with it in the "before" condition, with its 7mm diameter, wonky symmetry, but attention-getting performance. I have no complaint with BG or his service. But the stone went from 7mm to 6.5mm and that's like going from 1.25ct down to 1ct. Yours in in that ballpark, so if it's a good enough grade, like very good cut, you're probably better off to retain the size and sell as-is. There are inclusions and feathers and other issues with the crystal structure itself that may make it risky or unsuitable for recut, too.

 

[denverappraiser]

Be highly suspicious of an 'appraisal' where you are not the client, even if it's written by a source you count as reliable. Context matters, and it's been through at least one set of hands before yours.