Appraisals for jewelry serve to inflate the value placed on an item, (often up to 300%), for several reasons.
Something is only worth what someone else will pay for it.
The world's precious metals markets determine the gold price based on supply and demand, definitely not on appraisals.
If you still believe that appraisals best serve the consumer you might take your appraised jewelry into the retailer that supplied it and ask how much they would buy the item for, right now, in cash. Think it will be the appraised value? Think again...
Jewelry has an artistic appeal and may have an emotional element tied to it which may increase the value of the thing. Once the artistic appeal becomes unappealing and the emotional element has faded... it's just gold.
There are additional costs besides precious metal in making jewelry, such as hand labour, manufacturing costs, and insurance, but just like electronics and new cars the retail buyer pays the initial depreciation.
Precious metals are bought and sold on many different open and free markets around the world.
There are never 50% off sales in the precious metals markets.
KMG GOLD buys precious metals at the best flat percentage rate based on the world market price!