When an appraiser is asked to place a value on a piece of art little is left to chance.

Albuquerque art appraiser Peter Eller, who's been in the business since 1982, calls the process "due diligence."

"If I am asked formally, as an appraiser, to value an artwork, I have to have something to base it on," he says. "I need information."

Eller first photographs and inspects the piece of art, looking at quality, or how well it's executed; condition, whether unflawed, or soiled or damaged; and whether it's titled and dated.

His assessment of quality and condition is "not by my personal standards," he says.

"I judge it based on what my experience tells me knowledgeable buyers are looking for," he says. "The knowledgeable buyer is the basis for all determinations."

Eller then studies the market for the artist's work, and what kind of market it is: retail and/or resale. He looks into auction results to see how much the artist's work has sold for - and how much has sold - and checks with the artist's primary dealer, someone who has represented the artist over a period of years.

"I figure out where the actual market is," he says. "Is there still a retail market or is there only a resale market?"

He says it's a complex task requiring him to go back and forth between the types of markets looking for credible, current sales information. And he has to "read between the lines" in cases of artists who may have sold work in, say, the 1970s, but whose dealer is out of business.

"Currency has a lot to do in my business with establishing value and the potential for resale," he says.

Then, based on his research, he comes up with a report and valuation estimate that reconcile various differences in the comparables and the state of the artwork.

"It's like a real estate appraiser," he says. "We reconcile; how do you put a dollar value on the differences?"

Eller says he declines to appraise the work of emerging artists without a sales history.

"There needs to be an established market or I would be irresponsible from the professional point of view," he says. "My opinion would then be personal and subjective and based on nothing. Since I am an appraiser for hire, if I cannot make a justifiable valuation, then all valuation decisions remain estimates, matters of opinion."

He says it's not an appraiser who determines the value of a new artist's work. "It's the person who opens his or her checkbook and writes the check," Eller says. "My advice to new artists is to price your work to sell and try to establish a following. You build a market that way, and as demand increases, you gradually and manipulatively increase your prices. The market will guide you."

Eller says artists who have not been represented by galleries should keep thorough sales records, including copies of receipts and checks, to corroborate their recollections. "Such records can be used to verify the artist has a following, even if it's modest," he says.

Eller says there's a steady demand for art appraisals. People want art appraised to include it in a trust, to set a replacement value for insurance coverage, to donate it, for estate purposes and in division of property in divorce.