The Custom Piece Calculator can do two things: help you arrive at the value of piece of custom made jewelry and generate a simple article description text output to the Windows clipboard. The screen is divided into two sides. The left side (the text generator) is optional. The right side (the custom piece calculator) is one you would always use. The use of the two modules is simple. Just fill in the fields, answering the questions as they are asked.

Text Generator: After you have filled in all the fields and pressed the Process button the text generator fills in the text box at the bottom of the screen with a simple article description. All of this text is copied automatically to the Windows clipboard so if you use a word processor for your appraisals you can straight to it, position your cursor where you want the data to go and press the Control key and the V key at the same time. This will copy the data into your word processor for you. There you can edit as you see fit.

What if the item I'm appraising isn't on the item list? All you have to do is highlight the word Ring (the default selection for the Select Item Type field) and type in your description. Example: you want to appraise a ballerina ring. Ballerina ring is not on the list so you would simply type it into the field. This applies to Center Stone Variety, side stone variety and most other text fields, except Select Metal Type.

Two Metal Item: Very often today you will come across a piece of jewelry that is made of two precious metals. One example is the gold ring (or shank) with a platinum head. Note: You would not use this for a two-tone gold piece (14K yellow gold shank and a 14K white gold head). For that you would simply select 14K. If the piece has two different karats (such as a 14K shank and an 18K head) then you could use the Two Metals selection .

Labor Worksheet: The worksheet is optional. The numbers plugged into this worksheet are what the worlds largest jewelery chain charges in their shops. You can change any number you want. If the piece was made in Asia you will definitely want to put in lower numbers.

Process: Once you've filled in all the fields hit the Process button. At that point, if you used the article description text generator, the text box at the bottom of the screen will be filled. It is copied to the Windows clipboard automatically. If you switch to your word processor and hit Control and V at the same time, the text will be pasted into the word processor.