Having an economic value placed on something isn't just about bragging. As I say -- it aint bragging if it's true, your quilt is true! You should be so proud. When I say I'm deficient in the skills that improve a quilt by quilting, well you are the sort of person who shows me what is possible.
It is entirely up to you -- you know in your heart your value of the project. I myself would take advantage of the official appraisal to see what other people might think... it adds to our overall knowledge of our hobby if nothing else! From what I've looked at before, that seems to be a reasonable charge and would be from a very reputable source.
My husband and I have been discussing the financial value of quilts lately. I've never said too much about it to my friends and family, what my quilts cost to make or what my quilts would sell for or what it would take/cost to commission me. Another one of my sayings is I give freely but I don't work for cheap.. but it is becoming apparent that people just have no clue and so some of them treat my hundreds of hours of work and effort with disrespect. My quilts are blankets, they are meant to be used, but they aren't meant to be used to cover "valuable" pieces of junk furniture while being moved or be on the floor in the garage... so maybe they need to know that they can buy a blue tarp for $10 and maybe that's a better use of everyone's time and money.
So for my husband, three things stand out. One, I donated a baby quilt for a fundraising auction they had at work. He proudly told me it sold for $20. Great! I had $60 just in materials for that one -- but he had no idea. Second was he posted pictures of one of my projects and his brother/wife asked if I could make them something similar. I gave them what I thought was a very good offer, that I had no plans currently to make anything like that but I would sell them my completed project I made for me for $100, which would allow me to buy similar replacement fabrics for the top at sale price . That was too much for them. Third is recently I was given an almost complete Judy Niemeyer top, and I was talking about giving it to his sister, that she had the sort of life style and probably already had a list of specific items on her insurance policy. That even if quilted by me, it was the sort of thing you list in case of damage, fire or floods.
I had looked up this list when we were discussing that top -- there are other sources but here is the AQS list of local appraisers, you can search regions in the box on the top.
http://www.americanquilter.com/quilt...php?&offset=50