I'm an artist living in New York--a city overrun with custom frame shops, some of them extremely good, as you'd expect. But the good ones are expensive. I had to frame big photographs for a show recently, and was looking at framing costs close to $1000 per print. Yikes. The gallerist in Brooklyn recommended Metropolitan.
I took the plunge. The prices were about 1/3 what I found locally. And the quality is absolutely first rate. They worked with me to meet a deadline, and the frames were perfect.
A couple of caveats: if you're ordering online, you have to know what you want, and be certain of it. Their website doesn't offer a lot of tools to help you choose moulding, and the pictures that show their various finishes are small and not very accurate. Measure carefully. Measure again. Double-check that you entered the measurements correctly! No one else is going to do it.
And of course, you have to be comfortable handling the glazing and assembly once the frames show up. If you're using plexiglass and don't have an adequately big, dust-free workspace, you could be in for some unhappiness. I'd suggest researching online how to clean plexi and remove static charge while working with it.
The frames I got were made with maple moulding that they mill in-house. They were assembled with cabinet joints in the corners (awesome) and perfectly finished with tranlucent lacquer after assembly. Much nicer than frames built with pre-finished moulding. These were as nice as anything I've seen in museums.
I'll definitely use Metro again, but will make sure I have plenty of time and clear space for the assembly process. Doing it perfectly and keeping everything clean is not trivial. read more