I am by no means an expert on art. I inherited a lithograph that was professionally appraised for $1500. The only issue is that the glue that holds the piece in place in one corner has degraded over time, and the lithograph is now lopsided. The appraiser told me this is a common problem, and could be fixed by a framing shop. I contacted this business at the opening of business hours on a Saturday. While there was no answer, I was able to leave a message. I tried to be as polite as possible on the message and explain the situation as described above. I received a call back on Monday. I was not able to pick up the phone at that point in time, and a message was left asking me to call back, which I did only 38 minutes later. I called and, fairly certain that I was speaking to the woman who left the message, I introduced myself and said that I was returning the message that was left for me. Her reply was simply a curt, "Yes." followed by an awkward silence. I said, "Umm, I had left a message about a lithograph that the glue in one corner seems to have degraded, and you just left a message for me asking me to call back." which was answered by another curt, "Yes." followed by another awkward silence. "Umm, is this something you could possibly fix for me?" a curt, "Yes." followed by yet another awkward silence. "Umm, ok, could you tell me anything about this process." Besides the name of the business upon picking up the phone and the "Yes" replies to my previous statements and questions, I finally received more of a response (though she came off as being very annoyed to be speaking with me): "We could do something like that, but you would need to bring the piece in for us to evaluate it." I replied, "Ok, well, could you give me some sort of idea of whether this is an easy process or if you have some sort of ballpark figure of what I might have so spend." She answered, "It should be easy, but you would have to bring it in." She most definitely did not seem remotely interested in helping someone understand the process or the costs involved, and now to get any sort of straight answer (maybe), I would have to drive 30 minutes away with this piece. Now, maybe I'm not the typical customer, but I don't have tons of money lying around that I can just dump into this piece right now, and so I don't waste my time--or hers for that matter--it would be helpful to know what I might be expecting here, because if it costs too much, I can't do it right now. I'm generally a pretty reasonable guy, and I don't think I was being overly aggressive or out of line with my questions. I was just looking for a little bit of guidance. However, this company did not seem interested in developing a relationship or giving me a good first impression at all, so I'm not going to bother going in. I was also considering bringing in a number of signed sports posters I have collected, so I was interested in cultivating a relationship (I am loyal to good service), but maybe those pieces are too low brow for this company. Perhaps if you go in, you will have a better experience, but I see no reason why I should proceed at this point. read more
