If you sent us a request between 28 July and 5 August, it did not reach us. A fault on our form stopped some messages from coming through. Please call (301) 820-7664 or fill the form again. We're sorry for the inconvenience.
Artwork appraisals in South Dakota for donations, estate tax, insurance, and divorce, prepared in accordance with USPAP and IRS requirements. AppraiseItNow appraises paintings, sculptures, prints, photography, and mixed media across South Dakota, including Sioux Falls, Rapid City, and Aberdeen.
DEFENSIBLE, USPAP-COMPLIANT ARTWORK APPRAISAL REPORTS — QUALIFIED FOR THE IRS, SOUTH DAKOTA COURTS, LENDERS, INSURERS, AND MORE.
.jpeg)
Owner & CEO
Joe founded AppraiseItNow to make a certified, USPAP-compliant appraisal as simple to order as anything else online. A former Bain & Company strategy consultant, Joe leads the entire team and specializes in strategy, growth, and the firm's tech capabilities.
Personal Property Appraiser
ISA Accredited Member with 30 years in the trade, from running estate sales and an auction gallery to appraising luxury apparel, furniture, artwork, antiques, and business assets, primarily for IRS tax filings.
Personal Property Appraiser
ISA Accredited Member specializing in Asian art, with a Master's from SOAS and a Postgraduate Diploma in Asian Art. Ashley chairs the ISA's Antiques, Furnishings, and Decorative Arts committee and appraises for charitable donation, insurance, and equitable distribution.
Client Success Manager
Manages each engagement from the first enquiry to the delivered report, and keeps you posted at every step along the way.
International Society of AppraisersAccredited Member
The Appraisal FoundationAuthorized by Congress as the source of appraisal standardsAppraiseItNow appraises paintings, works on paper, prints, photography, sculpture and Northern Plains material in South Dakota for charitable gifts, estate and probate reporting, insurance scheduling, and property division. What a piece is worth depends on which market would actually buy it, and that market is settled before any price is quoted.
Single works
Hand, period, medium, scale, condition and ownership history are checked against realized auction and dealer sales for comparable work, and the adjustments between those sales and the piece in front of us are set out one at a time rather than folded into a single opinion.
Whole collections
A collection is sorted first. The works carrying real money are researched one by one and the rest are grouped, so an executor or an underwriter reads a single document instead of a stack.
Plains and regional work
Northern Plains material is valued on the collector market that trades it, with maker, community and ownership history treated as part of the record rather than as color. Where that record is thin, the report says so and prices the piece on what can be shown. Older household pieces are South Dakota antiques work.
The same canvas supports three different figures depending on who will read the report. A deduction, an inventory and a schedule are not variations on one number; they are three separate questions with three separate answers, and a report that blurs them tends to fail the one reader it was written for.
Gifts and deductions
A charitable gift of art takes fair market value on the date of the gift, prepared to the requirements the IRS sets for non cash contributions and Form 8283, with the comparable sales named in the report.
Estates and coverage
Probate wants the fair market value the work carried on the day of the death. A policy wants what replacing it would cost through the channel that actually sells its kind, usually the larger of the two.
Three rules sit behind an art valuation in South Dakota. One keeps a collection off the tax roll entirely, one makes a court ask its value again every year, and one governs whose name may be attached to a Plains piece at all.
Property tax
Exempt
personal property that is not centrally assessed is outside South Dakota's ad valorem tax
Personal property that is not centrally assessed is classified for ad valorem purposes and exempt from ad valorem taxation, without impairing any tax or fee levied in lieu of a personal property tax. Artwork held by an individual sits in that class, so no county ever puts an annual value on a collection. The practical consequence runs the other way from what owners expect: with no run of assessments behind it, the first real valuation of a South Dakota collection usually happens at a gift, a death, a claim or a divorce, when there is nothing earlier to argue from.
Conservatorships
$2,500
the value at which one item must be listed in a South Dakota conservator's annual account
Within ninety days of appointment a conservator files an inventory of the protected person's real and personal estate, listing each item in reasonable detail with its approximate fair market value and any encumbrance (SDCL 29A-5-407). The duty does not end there: every annual accounting must carry an inventory of any item of tangible personal property worth two thousand five hundred dollars or more that has come into the conservator's possession or knowledge. A collection that crosses that figure is therefore valued repeatedly rather than once, and the values have to be consistent from year to year.
Attribution
$250,000
the first offense penalty an individual can face for misrepresenting Indian made art
The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 is a truth in advertising law. It is illegal to offer or display for sale, or to sell, any art or craft product in a manner that falsely suggests it is Indian produced, an Indian product, or the product of a particular Indian, tribe or Indian arts and crafts organization. A first violation can cost an individual up to $250,000 or five years, and a business up to $1,000,000. The Act reaches Indian and Indian style work made after 1934, and it turns the maker's tribal enrollment into a matter of record rather than of description. For a state whose beadwork, quillwork, pottery and ledger art carry Northern Plains attributions, that is a valuation question: a piece that cannot be placed with a maker cannot be offered as tribal work, and the value follows the description the law allows.
What clients say we are known for
Across 80+ published AppraiseItNow reviews the picture is consistent: every one is from a client who paid us for an appraisal, and the three things they raise most often are that they would hire us again, how quickly we answer, and how much research is visible in the report.
The appraisal was done very well. Since he was a local artist here in Charleston, SC, they took the time to study and review Jim Booth’s art. His work has made him extremely famous, which can make an appraisal challenging, but they did a superb job and clearly explained how they arrived at the appraisal value. I highly recommend Appraise It Now and will use them again for all my artwork.
Artwork Appraisal for Insurance Coverage
AppraiseItNow did an excellent job appraising our unique art collection. Joe was always prompt and responsive, and he and his team delivered a thorough, well-supported appraisal in just a couple of weeks, even during the holiday season. I was genuinely impressed. Thank you for the great work!
Artwork Appraisal for Insurance Coverage
AppraiseItNow was amazing! My father passed with a large volume of artwork & I had no idea what it was worth. Their team was incredibly helpful and quick to respond with text and/or email to any questions as well as a status update along the way. Highly recommend!
Artwork Appraisal for Probate
I recently requested a retroactive appraisal for fine art from AppraiseItNow. I received excellent service from intake to delivery. The appraisal was delivered on time and the content of the appraisal absolutely met my expectations!
Artwork Appraisal
From the start they were very responsive, price competitive, and had a quick turn around time. Thank you so much to Joe who was very sweet in responding to my emails; I am looking forward to utilizing AppraiseItNow for many years to come.
Very thorough and professional — great communication and outstanding service. Highly impressed with their work!
Given the USPAP-compliant nature of AppraiseItNow’s appraisal reports, we prepare our deliverables for major legal, tax, and financial reporting purposes for individual and commercial clients.
Popular uses of our appraisal reports include:
No. Who made it dominates: the same subject by two different hands can sit at opposite ends of the market, and scale moves the figure far less than owners expect. Condition and ownership history do real work in both directions, since damage and heavy restoration are discounted while a documented exhibition or sale record supports a premium. Size tells most where an artist's work has a conventional format and a piece sits well outside it.
Within six months after the personal representative's appointment or nine months after death, whichever is later. SDCL Section 29A-3-706 requires the inventory to list each item in reasonable detail at fair market value as of the date of death, and significant artwork is a classic hard-to-value asset where a documented appraisal supports the reported figures.
No state tax applies. South Dakota has no estate or inheritance tax, so appraisals of inherited art there serve the probate inventory, income tax basis, and, for large estates, federal estate tax reporting rather than any South Dakota filing. Documented date-of-death values still matter, since basis at inheritance affects tax when the art is later sold.
Only if the entire estate, less liens, does not exceed $100,000 under SDCL 29A-3-1201. A single significant painting or a modest collection can push past that ceiling and force formal probate, and older guides still quoting a $50,000 limit are out of date; the codified figure controls. Accurate art values decide which path an estate can take.
Yes. Retail and auction sales of artwork are taxed as tangible personal property at the 4.2 percent state rate plus municipal tax of roughly 1 to 2 percent where the buyer receives the work. Auction guidance exempts categories like livestock, titled vehicles, and bullion, but fine art is not among them, so gallery and auction transactions bear tax on the price.
