How to be an accomplished appraiser

His name is Geoff Dominy, and he is one of Canadas most respected gemologists. Aside from his work as an appraiser on the Canadian Antiques Road Show, he is a Fellow With Distinction of the Gemological Association and Gem Testing Laboratory of Great Britain, was founder and president of the Jewelers Association of Canada; and teaches the Jewelry Appraisal Program at Vancouver Community College.

ILSTV sat down with Geoff to learn what it takes to become an accomplished appraiser.

Geoff Dominy: One of the main questions that my students ask me when they do the Appraisal Course is, What are the attributes of a jewelry appraiser? And I tell them that the first thing you have to do is to get qualified as a gemologist. Because there are two parts to an appraisal: One is to qualify and quantify what you are actually appraising, and thats the role of a gemologist. The second part is to assign a value to it. And unfortunately a lot of gemologists emerge from these different gemological programs feeling that they are competent in both areas.

A jeweler thats worked in the industry for thirty years is certainly competent and proficient enough to put a value on a piece of jewelry, but not necessarily qualified to actually identify the piece of jewelry that hes actually appraising. So consequently we get a lot of errors on appraisals where someone might believe that the stone is a blue topaz when in actual fact its a synthetic blue spinel.

At the same token we get gemologists who can accurately identify and grade the stones and everything else, but are seemingly unable to put an actual value—a realistic value on the actual appraisal. So really, to be an appraiser, you have to have years of experience in the jewelry trade in different levels and also to be a qualified gemologist. People think you finish your course and thats it, thats when your education ends. Thats when your education starts. Youve got to constantly keep abreast of whats happening in the market place because like the computer industry, the jewelry industry is changing rapidly. New and interesting things are coming out all the time and you have to be aware of them. Because again, how can you identify something, how can you value something, if you dont know that particular treatment or that particular enhancement?

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