Valuing Valuables

I recently inherited some valuables from a relative who passed away. They include some diamond jewelry. I’m really grateful, but I have to admit, I’m not sure what to do with this stuff as a college student. I could really use cash instead. I don’t want to sell this stuff--at least not yet--because it’s family stuff, but I also am kind of weirded out by having super valuable jewelry around. What if it gets stolen? I don’t even know what this stuff is worth. What should I do?

Condolences on the passing of your relative. It’s wonderful that you’ve received valuables passed down within your family--through your confusion is perfectly understandable!

For a bunch of pretty, shiny rocks, jewelry can certainly be surprisingly complex. Jewels may be family heirlooms or financial assets (or both); they may be the latest fashions or old museum pieces. They have a financial value, a cultural value, and a personal and interpersonal value. There’s a lot going on!

Here’s the good news: we do have some simple advice for you. If you don’t know how much your jewels are worth, you should get the appraised. You can do this by turning to any reliable jeweler--just do a bit of research online. Here’s why you should.

For starters, you worry that you have pricey jewels in your space. That’s a very reasonable concern, because--unless you left out some information in your letter--the theft or destruction of the jewelry would be a total loss for you. While nothing can undo the personal loss of a piece of family jewelry, you can protect yourself from a financial blow by getting the jewelry insured.

A renters’ insurance policy will do that, but you may need a rider added to protect the value of the jewels. And even if your jewelry is covered by the policy from the get-go, you may find yourself in a frustrating battle with your own insurance company if the pieces are lost before you can get them appraised. Knowing their value and documenting it, and then getting them properly insured, is a good idea.

And while you don’t want to sell the jewelry right now, there may come a time when you want to. People sell diamonds for all sorts of reasons: divorced couples ditch their engagement rings for cash, people re-sell jewelry to dealers and individuals, and, yes, you may even want to sell an heirloom--perhaps just one piece of the many doesn’t suit you (and your loved ones don’t want it, either), or maybe you end up in a financial crunch that absolutely demands you sell. Whatever the case, you want to get what the piece is worth--and that means it should be properly valued.

Your jewelry is an asset, even if it doesn’t feel like the most useful thing in the world right now. You’d be wise to properly value the jewelry, so that you can best protect it and, perhaps, sell it. You don’t yet know what you’ll do, and that’s okay--you don’t need a decision right now. What’s bothering you right now is the anxiety of owning these pieces and not knowing what to do with them, and that anxiety will be a lot lower if you have them appraised and insured.

“Anyone may have diamonds: an heirloom is an ornament of quite a different kind.” -- Elizabeth Aston