Poster beyond help!

[Susan May]

Had a customer walk in on Saturday with a large poster tube.

"Do you do print restoration?"

Ouch! What kind of question is that? My answer always feels like it should be... "that depends on what you want it to look like."

Turns out, this young man is in the Military, and in his last move, the Military Movers DESTROYED a signed and numbered print. He pulled it out of the tube, explaining that he did not want it fixed, but wanted a letter to give to his Insurance company to inform them that this was beyond repair. The print had not only been flattend (folded) but it was torn (in to shreds) and had been exposed to moisture (so that parts of the print were stuck to other parts.). There was SO MUCH damage, that I did not know where to start, just looking at the poor thing. At least the customer was handling the problem well. He seemed like he was calm.

What do you do when someone wants you to write a form like this? I'm not a paper conservator, and don't even have the proper background to sound like I know what I doing.

 

[D_Derbonne]

Sue, in my experience they just want a quote that says it is damaged beyond repair and an estimate of replacement value.

I charge for written quotes.

 

[JRB]

Living in San Diego, we get a lot of insurance quote requests for Damaged frames and pictures. You do not need to be a rocket scientist to determine if a picture has been destroyed.

Destroyed usually means it would cost more to fix it than it is worth. I understand there are other reasons for repairing a damaged picture, but for insurance purposes, value versus cost is usually the main consideration.

I used to do a lot of house fire quotes for an insurance company, and of course the repair work if the client decided to go ahead with the project.

I have always charged ten percent of the quoted price. If the customer decides to have us do the project, the ten percent is applied to wards the job.

I quit doing house fires almost twenty years ago. Even though it is a lucrative part of our industry, it is also unbelievably depressing to walk through someones home that has been in a fire.

One huge house I did up in Oceanside had been in the same family since the 1800s. That was my last house fire. Seeing possessions that went back for generations completely burned and destroyed just leaves you empty.

It takes days of writing to do these quotes, you can not do them in the hopes of maybe getting the job. You have to charge for them. No matter how small the project, I always charge for the quote. Ninety nine point nine percent of these folks lose all interest in getting the job done, once they receive their insurance check.

John

 

[JFeig]

From an ethics point of view as an appraiser, a percentage fee is improper and a potential conflict of interest. The best way to charge is a flat fee or a fixed hourly rate.

 

[JRB]

Jerome, I have tried all three, and percentage works the best for me. If anyone thinks I am padding my quotes, they are more than welcome to be walked through my price chart and have it fully explained how I arrived at my prices. I have had that happen only a few times.

I am not an art appraiser, I do not put values on art work. I put values on framing and restoration of framing. I work with two different restoration artists, oil and paper, to arrive at restoration charges.

If a piece is paper art and has an edition number of 5000 and it is going to cost $3,000.00 to restore it, we usually state that it is destroyed. The finale decision is of course, left up to the owner and the insurance company. (please note that those numbers and prices are hypothetical.)

John