Appraisals

Valerie: … pick the brains of the appraisers (laughs). Now, when you do an appraisal, what does it mean, what are you telling people?

Bill Brayley: Well, people usually want things appraised for a number of different reasons. The prime reason is to find out how much it’s worth. And this is usually referred to as a fair market value appraisal. Which means that if you have a matrimonial division, an estate division, or if you’re thinking of having something sold, ie a liquidation price, then you might use an appraisal based on an auction value. I… a nice gold brooch like this with a large-set amethyst might be auction value, $800-$1200. Now, if you were doing an insurance value, which is probably the second most common appraisal, then what would it cost to replace that? Now, obviously the dealer who bought that privately or at an auction, they would then have to mark it up, take in account their cost, they might have to get it buffed, prepared or what have you, and then they would put a retail price on it. And maybe a retail price on this would be $2400 and you’d use an appraisal like that for insurance purposes…

Valerie: So that’s a huge differential in price but they’re two different realities.

Bill Brayley: That’s right. Because dealers have costs, like any other retail business. If they have to repair or what have you, then those all become included in the margin of the item. So that…

Valerie: So how accurate are you?

Bill Brayley: How accurate am I? Usually…

Valerie: How accurate are all you guys?

Bill Brayley: Well, I think everyone’s fairly good because the basis for a lot of these appraisals, and we take a lot of our lead from cultural values, cultural property appraisals, where you have to do a significant amount of work to be able to substantiate your prices. You have to do due diligence to say, if we’re valuing this at $2400, you would try and find examples of where a brooch like this might be selling for that type of price. So you can support you values if an insurance company, or Revenue Canada, or the Cultural Properties Board came to you and said “You valued this at $2400 – why? How?”. And then you’re able to provide them with that sort of information. So we… here, on the Canadian Antiques Roadshow, most often is two values. The retail price, if this was in my shop where I saw it at retail, it would be $2400. Or, if this was being offered at auction it would be $800-$1200 and that’s what we tend to see in here most often.

Valerie: Ok, so auction price is generally lower than insurance…

Bill Brayley: In most cases… almost always.

Valerie: That’s a huge amethyst!

Bill Brayley: It is, isn’t it? (laughs)

Valerie: Very attractive. Think it would look good on me?

Bill Brayley: Absolutely, just wonderful.

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