Quite a few jewelers will make a deal with you to put your stone in their store, use their skills and resources to sell it to someone and collect a commission on the deal.  This should result in higher payment than outright sale to a dealer and, presumably, they can get higher prices than you could get by retailing it yourself and that this offsets the commission and then some.  That and someone else get’s the headaches of doing the work.  Often it works pretty well and this really does get the top dollar but there are a few key issues to remember.  You are, in effect, becoming partners with the jeweler, at least for this deal. That means you have to care if they remain in business, if they are paying their bills, if they maintain sound security procedures and insurance, if they are displaying things in a reasonable way and to the right people, etc.  It pays to do some homework on the dealer before you sign the contract. Check them out with the BBB, JVC, ripoffreport.com and similar services.  Ask how the experience has worked with others.  Shop the store and see if they present things in a way that YOU would buy there.   Talk to friends and coworkers who may have done business with them before.  Get a contract that spells out how it’s going to work, how much and when you are due to be paid when it sells and how long you are required to wait until you can retrieve it and try a different approach if it doesn’t.  Also spell out in advance who will be responsible for expenses like lab exams and repairs or resetting if they are going to be needed.

Decide how flexible you want to be over time.  It’s common to leave an item with a jeweler for a while at what seems like a reasonable asking price and then have them call you up and tell you they have a customer who will buy if they can get a discount.  Everybody likes to negotiate and you should know in advance how much of this comes from your cut and how much comes from the jeweler.  Also watch out for how these things can accumulate. For example, you may find yourself agreeing to a 10% discount to get a sale that doesn’t come through and the jeweler has now lowered the price by 10% for future shoppers.  When they ask for another discount of 15% in a few months, you’ve actually now agreed to 25% off from your original price.   This process costs the jeweler very little and it can be used to attract sellers by promising artificially high asking high prices that they KNOW they can’t get but they also know that after they’ve had your merchandise for a while you are likely to get frustrated and tired of the process and won’t drive such a hard bargain about changes later on.