I'd like to rant about a pretty awful experience I just had with Illuzions Gallery in Denver, after…read morebuying a $3k Eusheen piece from them.
This Eush piece "Spring Flow" from 2010 arrived in my hands last Friday. Much to my dismay, the piece had a very large crack in one of the large canes attached to the mouthpiece, that ran across all the way from the base to the tip of the cane. Luckily for me, I was able to prove the crack existed before they shipped the piece, from Illuzion's IG posts.
While I was obviously not happy, I told them I would rather not return the piece for a full refund if it could be avoided, because I am really in love with the piece and have no intention to sell it, and it would be a hassle as well as risky to send back a cracked piece like this with a metal stand. Since they were reluctant to offer any options, I proposed these options:
1. For Eush to repair it to 100% condition cosmetically and structurally - even though the piece will be worth a bit less even with a flawless repair
2. If repair is impossible/not viable, discount the piece to wholesale price or 50% of the purchase value, whichever is higher (since they most likely didn't pay more than $1000-1200 for this piece)
3. Or let me apply a store credit larger in value than the refund amount from Option 2, for me to buy another Eusheen or Buck piece from them
Illuzion's response was that they COULD ask Eush for a repair quote, if not I will need to return the piece for a refund. The cherry on top was that they were expecting me to pay for the repair job from Eusheen, and wait an unspecified amount of time, as well as take the risk of the piece breaking in the repair, 100% on my own. I completely lost my words after hearing this... They completely refused to take any sort of responsibility whatsoever for their mistake in not catching/disclosing an obvious flaw, let alone having a customer almost end up with a piece that has an undisclosed structural damage...
This is all while treating me like I was the one who cracked the piece and am now trying to pull a fast one. Their excuse was that "It's not our fault since nobody caught it after taking countless pictures and videos. 2/2 "And you got a $6-7k piece for $3k so you should be happy."
I will also say none of these pictures were posted on their website, or provided to me at all at the time of the purchase. This piece got taken off Illuzion's website last year for unknown reason they refused to disclose... which is also a bit suspicious now that I think about it.
Also I'm sure Denver locals could confirm this, but this is a piece that has been displayed for the last 10 years at $2200-2500 both online and in person, and did not sell. In addition, I have purchased two Eush pieces in the last 2 weeks that are more valuable (with more work and female joints) than this one also for $3k each, both from shops and without any flaws, let alone a fucking crack.
Needless to say, I am livid right now while typing this... I own/run a shop myself (timelessglassgallery.com), albeit much smaller than Illuzion but I do sell a fair number of high-valued pieces including ones worth well over $10k. If I made the same mistake of displaying a $3000+ piece for multiple years and then shipping it off to a customer without noticing/disclosing the crack, I would apologize profusely, and feel extremely lucky as well as grateful to be able to come out with no financial loss or damage in reputation... Obviously that's not how Illuzion's owner and manager felt about this whole thing.
I'm not blaming them for supposedly not catching the crack, after all I didn't see it either when I viewed the piece 4-5 years ago in person, although the piece was in a display case and it was not up close, but their response was just unforgivable to me. It really sucks, but I am returning the piece for a full refund, and really hoping nothing will happen to it on the way back, especially because the piece is cracked after all... While I am grateful for large shops like Illuzion for supporting the industry, this isn't the way a legitimate gallery (or any business for that matter) should treat a paying customer.
Thanks for your time in reading this, rant over. Make sure you inspect your pieces as soon as you receive them, and ask for plenty of pictures before purchasing, even from a large and well-established gallery. I