Professional appraisers charge for their services based upon an hourly rate or a per-item fee, never by a percentage of the appraised value. Jewels by Stacy Appraisals' current fee for insurance and estate appraisals is $160 per hour. (Litigation support fees are available on request.) Appraising several items at one time can result in considerable saving over a one-by-one approach. Of course, elaborate items containing many stones will take longer than average and plain gold items will take less. 

As a rule-of-thumb, for an insurance appraisal you can estimate 3/4 hour for the first item and 1/3 hour for each additional item, plus 1/3 to 1/2 hour laboratory time for each stone significant enough to require a certificate. There is a photo/image processing fee of $15 per item. Gemstone certificates done without an accompanying appraisal average 1/2 hour each.

Since we are highly computerized, the total expense is not much higher than that charged by many jewelers with no appraisal training. For your convenience, your appraisal will be active in our database for five years. The time required for re-appraising your jewelry, and thus your costs, will be greatly reduced if you have the jewelry re-appraised during that five-year period.