Where to Get Free Jewelry Appraisal
Having a free jewelry appraisal for your sellable jewelry is always a best idea. Right? But it might be difficult to find such places since it takes a lot of expertise and time for one to evaluate the correct value of your jewelry. That’s why most of the big jewelry brands never offer such services.
It can take a lot of your precious time to find free jewelry appraisal places, but it will be never an issue for you again. In this article, we are listing down the exact places where you will surely get your jewelry appraised for free.
5 Places to get Free Jewelry Appraisal
Here is a list of 5 places where you can get free jewelry appraisal.
1. Online Appraisal Services:
Certain online jewelry stores offer free jewelry appraisals for marketing and customer care purposes. Popular jewelry brands like Jackie Abraham and Revere Jewels. Though they may not provide as detailed appraisal as the paid ones, they are still worth it.
Jackie Abraham
It is a popular Florida based jewelry brand working for more than 30 years in jewelry and artifact trading. They have a huge loyal base of satisfied customers all over the U.S. Along with this, they are a certified GIA dealer and a proud member of Jewelers of America Association.
Free appraisal contains thorough detailed documents explaining what your jewelry is made from and how much it should be worth. All one has to do is to contact them via Jackie Abraham’s free jewelry appraisal contact page.
Revere Jewels
Revere Jewels is another reputable jewelry brand working for a long time in this industry. They not only do a free appraisal for you but also give a buy offer as well. They are available on call as well as email contact.
2. Local Jewelers
Local jewelers repeatedly provide free appraisals of jewelry so as to draw new customers and by offering such a valuable service without charges. Their main focus is to build new customers and gain trust of existing customers by giving off such services.
3. Pawn Shops
Pawn shops can be a great way of swapping your existing old jewelry into some cash quickly. Best thing about these shops is no hassle of booking an advanced appointment or waiting in long queues.
Some disadvantages can also be associated with pawn shops when it comes to selling or appraising jewelry items. If you don’t have any idea whatsoever your jewelry is worth, they will try to rip you off. Their appraised price will always be less than a jeweler’s.
4. Gem and Mineral Clubs
At times, free jewelry appraisals are done at Gem and mineral clubs’ events that are also attended by people who are not members of the clubs. These events can be a great source of cool and foster learning about different jewelry items.
You can easily search about the clubs working in your particular area in Google.
Attend their events and try to get an appraisal from different people to get a better idea of what your jewelry is worth.
5. Community Centers and Malls
Community centers and malls sometimes organize jewelry appraisal events, and these events are designed to offer free appraisals to everyone, providing a convenient and accessible way to find out your jewelry’s worth.
What to Expect in a Free Jewelry Appraisal
When it comes to what to expect in a free jewelry appraisal, first thing you need to know is the types of jewelry appraisal. Generally there are 3 types of it.
1. Insurance Appraisals
This appraisal is generally done by the jewelry insurance companies. Technically, this appraisal does not tell one about a jewelry’s worth. Instead it tells about how much it will cost for insurance company to buy an exact brand new piece. This appraisal includes gem prices, metal price, labor costs and brand costs.
2. Estate Appraisals
Estate appraisals are to determine an estimated amount of a jewelry in order to decide who gets what and how much from a passed on estate. Such appraisals are there to create an air of fairness and make sure no one gets way more than their share.
These appraisals indicate that for how much the jewelry item will be sold in the open market.
3. Offer to Buy Appraisals
This is the most common type of appraisal out there. It indicates how much someone is willing to pay for a jewelry at the very moment. This only includes price of metal, gemstones or sometimes brand value. Labor cost is never included.
For one to Important, you will wait for an appraisal expert to carefully look at the jewelry during the jewelry valuation. They will check whether the metal is pure and then they search for hallmarks on it followed by an assessment of gemstones which involves examining them to know their clarity, cut, color as well as carat weight.
Make sure to check whether your jewelry appraiser is a certified appraiser from Gemological Institute of America aka GIA or not.
Things to Remember before going for Free Jewelry Appraisals
There are certain questions you need to ask yourself before going for an appraisal. Most important of these questions are:
1. Is Your Jewelry Clean?
Make sure to present clean jewelry to the appraiser. If your jewelry in unclean or tarnished, make sure to address these issues first. Stones like diamond or diamond dust require proper cleaning before appraisal for accurate estimate of their color and clarity.
If your jewelry is unclean, appraiser might den a free appraisal or appraise it less.
2. Does Your Jewelry Need Repair?
Look for any loose stones, missing or loose clasps and sharp metal protrusions. If your jewelry has anyone of these, make sure to repair it first. Otherwise your jewelry might be valued way lower than it is worth.
3. Have You booked an Appointment?
It is an important step to be taken care of. Since you’re applying for a free jewelry appraisal, there is a need of booking an appointment first. Expect a week or two of waiting period before you are attended for free jewelry appraisal.
4. Are You bringing jewelry documents?
When you visit a free appraisal place, remember to take along any relevant papers such as the bill of sale or an authenticity certificate. It will help appraiser in making an accurate estimate of what the jewelry will sell for.
Can you sell your Jewelry same as the Appraised price?
Not necessarily. If you have an old appraisal document of your jewelry, commonly it will be an insurance or estate appraisal. These appraisal are not an accurate measure of what someone can offer you for the same jewelry piece while selling. There can be numerous reasons for it.
Sometimes, your appraisal includes labor costs as well (in case of insurance appraisal) which will not be paid by the buyer.
Secondly may be you have an older appraisal and the prices of stones and metals included in it have changed over time. That’s why it is always better to make sure that you are not expecting the same price for a jewelry piece as your appraisal document tells.
Pros of Free Jewelry Appraisal
No Money Spend
It’s always a great feeling to have a service for free. Since free jewelry appraisals do not cost you anything, you can do it again and again to get a better value.
An Estimated Idea of Your Jewelry’s Worth
Free valuations help in determining how much your jewelry is worth before you start spending money in the process. It can be much more useful especially when you are not sure of the value of your merchandise or want to sell or insure it.
Gain of Experience
Receiving a free estimate provides you with an idea of the current value of your jewel which is a useful means of making your choices because it involves the market price of your jewel.
The interaction with experienced appraisers during the appraisal also means that you get to know more and be advised upon by knowledgeable professionals.
Cons of Free Jewelry Appraisal
Can be Misleading
You have to understand that appraising jewelry is a big business within itself. Few are the chances where you will find a certified professional doing it for free. So if your appraisal is done by an un certified professional, it can lead to a false value appraisals and sometimes too good to be true sort of expectations.
Unclaimable Appraisal Documents
Free appraisals are often done by uncertified people as a marketing tactic. Since they’re uncertified people with no association with big institutions such as GIA, you can’t get paper documented appraisals with their stamps. So such appraisals do not have any worth and cant be claimed anywhere.
This thing is not necessarily the same in every case, for example, as mentioned above Jackie Abraham does this paper documentation for free.
No Guarantee of being Précised
Getting a free appraisal is tempting; however, sometimes it can’t be precise because the person who prepares the information has little motivation or time required for exhaustive evaluation.
In such circumstances appraiser can miss minor details and often come up with inaccurate jewelry appraisal reports.
Conclusion
There are numerous ways to get a free jewelry appraisal that could meet your needs and preferences. Some of those ways are looking for online jewelers, pawn shops, jewelry events or your local jeweler. It must be noted that every way has its very own pros and cons.
So, every way which you choose, proper knowledge and pros/cons associated must be known. In this way you can get maximum benefit out of your free jewelry appraisal and use it to sell your unwanted jewelry.