What a joke.

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danny boy

danny boy

PFG, Picture Framing God
In Memorium
Rest In Peace

Gone but not forgotten
Joined
Dec 18, 2004
Posts
5,392
Loc
Oregon's Bay Area
I just had a conversation with a TK collector about a broken lite of glass she had in one of her Prized Collectables. She wanted it replaced but did not want me to open up the back through the dust cover because she said "it was a conservation package and contaminates could get into to the artwork." This could "also devalue the piece as a whole".

Now mind you the glass is broken and in many shards, the edges have cut into the artwork and the mat. It is also discolored because it has sat in an open garage for the winter and been exposed to moisture and dust.

So... I need some of that instant glass you just sprinkle on it and the new glass grows..... :shutup:

The back has a date and batch stamp on the back and thats important to her. I noticed that it had beed punctured through the back and that the print looks to be mounted on cardboard. There is also a piece of thick cardboard in the place of foamcore. :icon9:

It is a signed and numbered edition and she is sure its gotta be worth a bunch.

TK. Conservation. Limited edition. Increasing value. :shrug:
Give me a break. I asked her where she learned about conservation and preservation only to be informed the opperator/ sales agent had schooled her. ( I need a little smile pulling his hair out).

Soooo. We talked about reality. I opened it in front of her and she gasped alot. The print is glued down. She does not want me to try and locate another to replace it. Just make it look as good as they promised. Oh, and not much money, infact the word she used was 'Cheap".

What a joke.
 
good grief...some people have not a clue do they?
 
OY. Well, I had a couple come in yesterday with a limited edition, on art paper with about a 5-inch margin around the image. They had already been to one place for a quote, and wanted to see what I could do. So I put some mat samples down over the piece, covering most of the white border. But since the border is 5 inches, and the mat samples are 4 inches, some of the white paper was sticking out the sides. Then I put up the frame samples, and the husband started complaining that I didn't get it, that I didn't know what I was doing like the guy at the other place, and it was too big. TOO BIG!!! So I'm puzzling over how putting the frame sample pretty much at the edge of the paper the limited edition is on is too big. Because that's the size of the art. I even suggest floating the art with a one-inch border around, and that's TOO BIG!!! What, one inch bigger than the art itself? Yes, says the hubby, but it's one inch all around, and it's TOO BIG!! So the hubby finally announces that he's tired of me being such a poor designer, and he's going back to the other place, where they "get it." Turns out the other place is Michaels.

What I didn't figure out at the time was this. The guy at Michaels probably put the mat sample down on the piece, and then stuck the frame sample on top of the mat sample, about halfway out, showing a two-inch margin. Making it small. Small and cheap (well, actually 2x cheap but it's 50% off, this week only). And here's the kicker. The guy at Michaels was going to fit that 20-inch square piece of paper in a 12-inch square frame by...you guessed it, cutting off the white border on the limited edition.

Oy.

Oh, and I haven't had a sale of anything, not even a mat, since Saturday morning.

Oy.
 
Danny its sounds like you have had the same kind of day i have.But its friday so i cant be too upset just going home pretty soon and have a big glass of wine.
 
Beneath our laughter, this story serves sad testimony about the poor ethics of some art dealers, and the gulliblity of some consumers.

When customers learn lessons like this one, we all suffer, as their crust thickens and they become ever more cynical about us.

"We have met the enemy, and he is us."
Pogo, by Walt Kelly; Earth Day, 1971
 
danny boy said:
So... I need some of that instant glass you just sprinkle on it and the new glass grows..... :shutup:
Click to expand...

Danny, it is apparent that you’re trying to gouge the customer by replacing the glass.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Why didn’t you tell her about the “glass glue” that we all hide in the back room? :confused:
 
Really. You'd better go see that expert at M!*@$#!$, and git some learnin about the proper way to treat that priceless piece of TK!!!
 
Watcha do is call in one of those windshield repair companies. They inject their patented polymer extrusion and repair the glass in minutes before it gets any worse. (Throwing it across the room in frustration could make it worse.)

Glad I could help. Sometimes you just have to step back to see the big picture.
 
danny boy said:
I need a little smile pulling his hair out
Click to expand...

You got it!


4_2_204v.gif
 
Ahhh to educate the masses

We have had TK and discussed the preservation sealed framing done by the trained gorilla in the back. As I told our customer the reason they do not want anyone removing the back and destroying the seal is then a real framer might actual tell the customer how poorly it was protected in the first place.
 
This is no kidding!!

I had a lady bring in the same as Danny Boy. Glass was broken in several places. It looked okay from the front, but I took it apart in front of her. There was about a 5" scar on the print and it was triple matted. She tried to lay the blame on me. I would have nothing to do with that. I showed her where the break line lined up with the scar. She was okay with that.

This is where it gets bizarre. She asked me to put the print back in the frame with the broken glass.

No, I didnt.
 
danny boy said:
So... I need some of that instant glass you just sprinkle on it and the new glass grows....
Click to expand...


This is one of the funniest things I've read in awhile.
Thanks for the smile, Danny.

I can understand why the broken glass was a concern,
though. If she'd left it like that, her beany babies and
Cabbage Patch dolls might have gotten cut.
 
You should've entered the print information into EBay for her so she could see that there are 50 of them for sale at $28.
 
I had something else to make me scratch my head the other day.

A regular and valuable customer of mine collects the John Gould bird prints which are quite valuable and each print usually comes with a "legend" or a page of explanatory text about the bird. It is equally vital to preserve both print and legend as losing the legend devalues the print.

When he came in with his latest acquisition, a magnificent print of a Bird of Paradise, he told me he had bought it from a "prestigious" gallery in Sydney and paid quite a bit for it as, generally, the brighter the bird the more the prints are worth.

Like many Goulds I have seen this one definitely needed cleaning and de-acidifying but the real horror came when I removed the cellophane wrapping. The print was matted with standard matt, which is just about forgiveable if it is a temporary measure only, but it was stuck to the matt with great swatches of common or garden sellotape across each corner. The stuff was really rubbed on hard so that was a conservator job then, to cap it off, the gallery had thoughtfully included an A4 sized card with a pic and biography of John Gould and STUCK THIS ONTO THE LEGEND WITH DOUBLE SIDED TAPE.:shrug:

When the customer saw this he just about popped his cork and I am sure a blistering email was soon headed towards the gallery. I wonder if they will take any notice?
 
Jokers come to my shop almost everyday!! I am wondering why this kind of `joker' like to make fun of the framer??:help:
 
In Michaels' defense, we had a similar deal with the CutDown King. He went nutz when I wouldn't trim the artwork. He went to Ms (which I know as, at the time, we had a framer who was good friends with the then Ms manager) and they also refused to trim the artwork. The guy went so ballistic that he actually TORE UP the artwork (thus teaching us all a lesson, I guess....) So some of them have scruples...
 
Ok..... I know i wouldnt' do it. but this is making me wonder. If the customer really wants us to cut the art down. it is theirs after all.... should we not do it?

I know its not right. i know its not what we are supposed to do, and i know it ruins the artwork, and im not even talking about losing the sale if we don't.

but if its what the customer wants??? I guess it could come back to bite us at some point... but with a customer like the ones they sound like on here, would it?

can't we just add a note under it incase someone else ever does open it up and say the customer wanted it cut down.

and don't put your sticker on the back saying who you are.lol

just wondering. i know sometimes you can't win no matter what. and the guy that tore up the paper showed us.

luckily ive never had anyone like that after i explain it to them.
 
The guy got so mad he tore up his own artwork because you wouldn't cut it down?

My goodness, what a world we live in nowadays.

Yikes.
 
I just hand them a pair of scissors and tell them to smile for the camera because I am going to document that they cut it. This usually results in some thoughtful revisiting of the design, but occasionally they take me up on it.
 
OMG - but in this litigious society we live in they could fall and cut themselves with the scissors and then come back atcha and sue you! OMG! What to do? What to do?
 
Dont cut ANY art! Even if the customer insists. We've proven here that most people are very uneducated about this sort of thing.

You can try to protect yourself all day long, have them sign documents and put stickers on the back, but if it really came back as an issue these things would not hold up. You knowingly damaged a piece of art that has whatever level of value.
 
I'll place a pair of scissors on the table and politely turn away for a few moments, so the customer can mutilate their property themselves, but I won't do it for them.

I recently had a young man come in with a print, cradled in bubble wrap, broken glass, and what was left of the uniframe that had held it. The office he worked at had sent him out with a budget of $100 to get it reframed. So I removed the print carefully from the debris, and put the debris in the back for disposal. I then quoted him a price of $97 (including 9.25% sales tax) for reframing with a single mat, black frame, glass, etc. He calls his office, and the boss tells him to continue shopping around for a better price.

I was so stunned by the idiocy of paying this guy $14/hour to drive around and try and beat a price of $97 that I didn't think to retrieve his broken glass, ratty-a$s uniframe, and bubble wrap and give it back to him.
 
at least we know that jerks are all over the place, so you are not singled out; fun to read and be entertained Saturday evening by these stories, having a gin and tonic even makes it better. Cheers.
 
Paul, they come at all levels.

Years ago I stopped by some friends. At the time they had grown their 'back bedroom' business into the largest gun supplier on the west coast.

They needed coffee..... so he and I jumped in his 79 Corvettte (5.6mpg) and drove to the store. $2.96 for a can of coffee..... as I'm grabbing the can, Bob says.... 'no, I think I can beat that price'. So back into the Vet and off we go.

Safeway . . nope $3.10
Vons . . . nope $2.98
Hughs. . . nope $2.98
Skaggs . . . nope $3.18
7-11 . . . $3.89 but we also got a couple of $2 slurppies. . . driving around town for an hour and a half is hot work when the temp is in the high 90s and the air conditioner is having a hard time keeping up with the top down... :icon11:
Pick & Save . . . $3.29
Victory Market . . $3.86
Canoga Farmer's Market . . $3.10 . . . but it's lunch time and would take to long to drive the 12 miles back to the shop to eat that frozen burrito..... so $10 for lunch.......

So back to the No. Hollywood Bag-N-Save . . . because $2.96 WAS the cheapest price . . . was. They had been repricing since we had been there. $3.29. Guess who decided that they didn't need to be providing coffee for the employees anyway. :rolleyes:
 
My dear old grandma used to drive her big gas guzzling Caddillac all over town to get the specials at each supermarket...like she saved 2cents at each palce and spent $10 worth of gas doing it.....
 
If I had a gun I would surely shoot myself before going to that many stores in one week much less one day.

Mayhap that is why I am so lousy at being in business - I HATE shopping!!!!!!!
 
My thoughts ran the same as Jim Miller's on this topic.

It truly is a shame that so much misinformation is handed out by salespeople who may not necessarily be unscrupulous but are poorly educated to art preservation practices. Their words are taken as gospel by an also ignorant public who depends on an "expert" to lead them.

A little knowledge is dangerous in the hands of someone who pretends to know more than they actually know and portray themselves as an authority.

As framers, it is our responsibility to constantly stay abreast of the latest thinking in conservation and preservation practices and to also not propagate misinformation. If an area is outside of our expertise then we must be professional enough to say so and either do the research to bring ourselves up-to-speed or refer our clients to an authority.

An expert doesn't necessarily know everything but must only represent what they know with confidence and take a pass on what they do not know. I respect someone who admits their lack of knowledge in an area as much as someone who is knowledgeable. We all have areas of expertise and need to know what bounds to set on our own counsel.
 
I'm not into cutting a customer's artwork, however, I will do it only if they sign a document saying so. (I know it probably wouldn't hold up in court, but for the average poster print that's not really irreplaceable, I've got something saying they thought it was an okay idea.)

I've noticed that lately there are a lot of people that are calling me asking me for appraisals of their "art". They give me the name of the artist (if they can read it) and usually give me a very long story about how they came to have it in their posession (often acquired at a yard sale), and then they want to know what it's worth.
Hey people! Anyone can slap some art materials around and call it "Art". It doesn't mean it's good, it doesn't mean the artist is famous, and it certainly doesn't mean that it's worth anything! And there is no way that anyone on this earth could possibly know of or keep track of every person slapping around those art materials!
If you or your friend like the "art" piece, cool. Hang it up and enjoy it. If you don't like it, give it away or toss it - if you really think it might be worth enough to get you out of the poorhouse, call your insurance agent and pay for an appraisal. Don't assume that it's necessaily worth anything if it came from a local art festival, or a street artist in Europe or South America. (All of whom need to leave WAY more blank canvas edges on their work!)

There are lots of people out there willing to believe that various pieces of "art" are worth more than they paid for them. How exclusive do you think TK's are when there were four galleries in Gatlinburg (a tourist area) ten years ago that all sold TK's exclusively! Come On People - use your brains, that's what they are there for.

Oh, and for anyone "collecting" "art" and storing it in a wet basement or unprotected garage, or throwing it around and breaking the glass: that treatment right there pretty much shows that your subconscious knows it's carp, whether or not you realize it consciously!
 
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