hey guys my name is Dominique flux I'm
a custom jewelry designer and today I'm very excited because we are going to be
doing a deep dive on everything that you need to know about appraisal so appraising
your engagement ring appraising your jewelry or gemstones and I have here today Louise
van colen she is a certified FGA gemologist and not only FGA she's also approved for
appraisals which is very important we're going to touch on in a second so thanks
for watching and let's jump jump into it all right so we're going to start with the basics
what is an appraisal what is evaluated when you're doing an appraisal and kind of like why is it
important okay so an appraisal is what I have Jeweler and private customers coming to see me to
do appraisal for jewelry it could be for jewelry for loose Stone and indepraisal we have like
a first portion to identify the gem so is it a real diamond is it a natural stone and then
we'll gonna have like to calculate the value of it so this is the appraisal part the value and
we can give like different value for a jewelry it could be like a replacement value so this is
the is value that we can have and it could also be like the liquidation value so the lowest value
so we work for let's say succession okay heirloom so when you inherit like a piece of jewelry from
your grandma or your mom what are we going to do with it what's the value of it and I think it's
also very important because like a lot of our clients come to us for like let's say engagement
rings first of all she'll be able to see what the market value is which is very important but she's
also going to be able to give you certification so that you can insure it which is very important
right for an engagement ring I think a lot of the times most Jewelers by default will not insure the
Center Stone that is for you to do it so in her giving you the actual market value of it you're
going to be able to take that to your insurance and shirt for the full amount yes super important
especially you know if that stone pops out they'll be able to replace it for you like anytime you're
buying something of a certain value you want to have it appraised by a third party because they'll
be able to verify that it is what it is just like we're just talking about her being an appraisal
certified gemologist would you like to touch on the difference between that and so you can be so
when you do when you are a gemologist it's like you graduate from like a school that got to teach
you how to identify gemstone when your demo just you don't give any value you just like identify
Stone so you can be graduated from FGA which is a diploma like they give in London or you can
be like a Gia student and you basically it's come from all around the world and once you're
a gemologist you can like take different field and work like in more specific environments like
I did with the appraisal when you are a certified appraiser you're learning how to give price based
on a project quality but also on the different markets so let's say the market in Montreal won't
be the same as the one in Paris and that brings in a really good question because like for me for
example all my clients are in the states so does it matter if the appraisal is done in Montreal
and then it's being shipped out it doesn't matters because I mean when we look at the jewelry we
have the knowledge of how the jewelry is made and when we look at a stone no matter what stone
it is all the the references books and prices is list on those type of stone are in us okay so
I mean the US is kind of the the U.S value for the stone this is like the norm so that we do it
in Montreal or in New York or in Paris it's going to be like the same value and for the jewelry
yeah it's the workmanship is the same which is going to have to adapt the margin depending of
the the country very cool very cool and talking about let's say heirloom jewelry water or kind
of like any jewelry what would you say are the main key ingredients that you are evaluating well
we'll have to take in consideration is there like a jeweler a specific well-known Jeweler that did
that jewelry because if it's an heirloom and the Jeweler is well known let's say in Montreal back
in the time we had like Lou Goldberg that was doing like amazing jewelry piece today those pills
they're just not gonna sell for the liquidation value they're gonna go like an auction Market oh
very nice so this we have to take in consideration than the stone will it be stone that some Jeweler
will buy today just for the stone so this is like a little stuff that we have to look into when we
do appraisal for uh heirloom it's usually much more work than it's like for a regular solitaire
diamond ring okay okay and it's a very hard to identify who it came from like the authenticity
or well it depends okay but we have like the marks and it's in stamp in the ring this helps but also
the making in general we can see if it's been done with proper care or not for craftsmanship versus
good craftsmanship 100 so I'd also like to touch on the difference between let's say coming to you
an appraiser or going to let's say like one of these big Labs like Gia or what would you advise
a client wow if you go to Gia they're not going to give you an appraisal they're going to give you
like a quality report yeah so if you have like a if you inherit like a stone like a nice Sapphire
let's say it was your grandma you know it might come from Burma and it's untreated and so you
know that just don't have a value you're going to send it to Gia to know if it's really what
you think it is and then when you have like the quality report for that type of big lab you
can send it to a independent appraiser or like me to give it a value okay very interesting
all right so for the second half of the video we are actually going to do a deep dive and
we're going to follow her while she actually appraises so you can kind of see the in depth
of all the steps that she does take because it is quite of an extensive process evaluating
gemstones so uh let's jump into it foreign so for example today we're going to show you how
she evaluate this ring it is the finished piece and it has Sapphires and rubies or it's actually
diamond and rubies but this we're gonna have to check because we cannot ask him this is rubies and
Diamond we're gonna have to test so when I receive a ring and do the appraisal of it I'll first
gonna have to look into the metal and see if we do like if we see any uh marking marks so let
for example if we look at this ring we have like a little stem that's setting a eagle head it means
that 18 karat gold and it's come from Europe once we look the type of gold that we have we're gonna
wait it at a scale to know what's the the weight of the Ring once we took all the information
on the the goal the type of gold we're gonna take all the measurements so because in case
this ring is lost we're gonna have to redo it exactly the same that's the like the the purpose
of making an appraisal for replacement value is it a domed ring is it like a tapered shank what type
of stone that we have on it what type of setting is it like green set is it like a channel set
today one of the biggest problem of the industry is the lab groom created Stone so it's man-made
Stone especially on diamond that's pretty new on the market and we see more and more those
of those diamonds that are created so when I see colorless Stone on a ring I will have to check
if it's natural diamond or black grown Diamond so first I'm gonna do like a first of the observation
under the microscope this is like the gemological instrument that we use the most we'll be able to
see if there is like natural inclusion or labrum inclusion so usually under the microscope we're
gonna look for the identity of the stone but also we're going to take some measurement we have like
those timing little ruler that's gonna let us know what's the let's say diameter of the Stone because
when a stone is set into metal we cannot wait it so based on Dimension we'll be able to estimate
the weight of it and then let's say if I have 50 stone that measure two millimeters I'll be able to
estimate that every stone weights one one third of a carrot let's say so far so good everything looks
natural the inclusions look natural but we're gonna double check it the shallow comes diamond
tester it's gonna test if you have like a natural or lab grown Diamond so this it's a very easy to
use a little uh tool that is a very expensive one so we place the ring inside of the little drawer
you can see the ring and because the stone are set in Gold uh we're gonna put jewelry and it's gonna
kind of look at the fluorescence of the stone and compare it natural to labrum so depending on the
color that we're going to observe we will be able to to check so here this is really like a tester
for diamonds so do not look at the Redstone who are the the rubies so we'll look at all the little
blue one and that's actually what we want to see because a natural diamond will have like a blue
reaction under this Sherlock Holmes uh tester so all of the diamonds that you can see that are
in the middle of this ring are a blue reaction could be like a light blue a darker blue that's
mean it's a natural stone for example if we had like a lab grown Stone this this is the difference
between natural diamond and all the red and yellow diamonds they are lab grown so they don't have
like the blue reaction that we are waiting for like in a natural diamond so this machine you you
saw how easy it was to use this is a live server for today's market because we have like a lot of
confusion and the price the value of lab grown and natural diamond this is very big difference
so then we're gonna do like some other tested to check for the gemstone so we already looked at the
Gold if it was not stamped I would have tested it with acids so I would have found my little Stone
like a mark of gold and then tested it with some acid so let's say we have like the 18 carat if
the the acid would have make it disappear the Gold Line that I draw on my little stone that means
that's it's a lower value of gold so here I'm not gonna do it because it's stamped so we usually
trust the stem that we have on the on the jewelry but we're also gonna have to look at the Ruby or
sapphire in this case it's a pink stone it could be Ruby but it's a bit too much of a pink which
we're gonna test and so it's probably more like a pink sapphire than a ruby we're gonna check if
it's um in this family of gemstone for that we're gonna use like the refried Tomatoes after the the
microscope this is the most useful tools that we have so we're gonna take like a little drop of the
um reference liquid I'm gonna put it up here and we're gonna put our Stone on the little window
that we have here and here we kind of have like a scale of Shadows and we're gonna have a look
at where the Shadows stop on the scale and it's basically measuring how fast the light goes into
the stone and every type of stone gonna have like a different reading on this little scale so here
we can see 1.77 which is mean it's a corundum corundum it's the family of Ruby and Sapphire to
say is it a ruby or is it a pink sapphire because the price will be different we're gonna look into
like a color scale and looking at how pink it is you see there is different variation of pink so
we're gonna look at the Brilliance of the stone and try to find the brightest pink that we can
have in this color and we're gonna try to match it on our scale once we have the color will find
the name for it and because we have let's say here Vivid purplish red in the 7.5 RP tone 5 saturation
14 we're gonna look like in our book of color and it's gonna say to us is it Ruby or is it sapphire
in this case we can say it's Ruby because it's built it's the right color for Ruby so price will
be different so once we assess all the let's say the characteristic of the strings so we have
like the metal quality the stone quality the the amount of stone the Cara weight we're gonna
calculate the value so for the diamond we mostly use the Rapaport price list is used everywhere
in the world in China in New York in Paris and Montreal and we have like all the the price for
small Stone so let's say here we have like two carat of little Stone and we're gonna look like
in those quality any color and what's the price of the market of today's diamonds so it could
be for small Stone it could be for fancy shed Diamond bigger one smaller one we have like all
this information it's kind of the Bible of the gemologist for prices for color stone we based
our information on the gem guide they also do prices for Diamond they are like it's a very good
effect to have both price list for the diamonds in the wrap above and in the gym guide so we can
compare different price lists but they are most well known for their color prices list for the
gemstone so let's say if we go in rubies because that's what we have so the stone and this ring
are so if we're gonna go corundum and Ruby we're gonna look at the Quality so here the color was
an excellent color we had like very few inclusion and the weight is about like 30 points so 0.30
carried each little Stone so we're gonna look like in the weight wrench and the quality based on the
color and the clarity and the cut and we'll figure it out like a price per carat once we have the
price and all the information that we mentioned earlier will be able to assess the value of every
different part of this ring that's the process of appraising a jewel once it's done Shields she's
going to send you a very nice kind of like format like this so that you can keep it in your files um
I think it's really pretty actually so it's kind of cool you have like a full picture and like
description of everything that's in it so these generally range about like 150 dollars a little
bit less if you're just doing a gemstone so yeah reach out if you'd like to have one uh thanks for
watching we do have a lot of short form content on our Instagram if you ever prefer that kind
of like shorter method and I just like to say thank you for your time thank you and we'll see
you next time my name is Dominique Flux bye guys foreign [Music]
