The Framers Forum

ive got crates full of punch books we used to sell them mounted too. we sold literally thousands from our old shop at a fiver in a single mount. Maybe its time to get the stanley knife out again
I used to have a filing cabinet full of loose pages all filed by theme, the last time we sold a lot were, erm, on ebay, just before the hunting ban, all hunting themed ones naturally.
In fact that is how we first got into this business.
ready for a long story, I thought not, but here you go anyway:

I was working offshore for a diving company, Mrs Kev and I were taking a week out in Dartmouth, a matey of mine had a lad passing out at the navy college so we all went up for a few days -and while we were there she bought me two "antique" diver prints in a gallery. They were in large cream mounts.
Then the game was on to find a pair of frames in trago mills.... then trying to cut down the mounts and finding they were old punch magazines (london chiravari) I realised that my mate had bought me an old bound collection of punch magazines for the previous christmas and I realised that maybe there was a bit of pin money in this.
well, it wasn't long before I bought a few boxes full from the local book shop, and had a go at cutting mounts.
Pretty soon I was looking at a second hand mount cutter. Enter Ventons with a used keencut laser. Two hundred quid, delivered on the van. Nice. Buggered the dining room table well and truly though.
my first order for mount board was two single sheets from Ventons
Then we had them sale or return in shops all over west cornwall, 50/50 split.
I knwew a bit about wood blocks, as i had (and this sounds really weird now) a heidelberg letterpress in the shed - it was a hobby, I like machines lol. And at the time I had some old original blocks of local maps. so i printed them up too. Then someone ordered fourteen (i think) framed, but my framer let me down.
well, strictly speaking he didn't let me down, he died, but it meant that i had to go to B&Q pretty quick and get a mitre saw.... and phone ventons for five sticks of 296 and two sheets of glass. And in due course, "whats that thing called you join it together with?"
"an underpinner".
"ok I'll have one of those"
There was a secondhand one at £200.
"ok I'll have that".
You'll want a compressor for it"
OK I'll have one.
"Ive got a secondhand one for £200"
Those were happy days when everything second-hand at ventons was two hundred quid.
Shortly after I bought a used morso from an artist. Yup, two hundred quid.
I think that must have been the cheapest frame-shop set up in the history of framing.
The rest is history, as they say....

jeez those mounts i cut were terrible, every once in a while i get one in thats been doing the rounds for 15 years and I cringe, and usually do another one for them lol.
And I've still got my £200 morso

kev@frames wrote:Pretty soon I was looking at a second hand mount cutter. Enter Ventons with a used keencut laser. Two hundred quid, delivered on the van. Nice.

Hi Kev,

Ditto! My first one was second hand from Venton's too! It was a 60" long C&H Bainbridge with no start of cut or end of cuts stops. The screw for locking the end of the marging guide in place was too short too reach the little round block inside the baseboard, so the free end of the margin guide had to be held in position with masking tape. Like you I had to learn how to cut mounts, but customers never said anything about the overcuts, so I figured they must be o.k.

At the time, I owned a second hand books and prints shop in Newton Abbot. I bought it as a going concern, but it was a carp business - If it was a horse you would have shot it! However, the lessons I learnt during that time were priceless.

During that time I went to the Spring fair for the first time and started to find out what it was all about. I walked around a corner and there was Pete Bingham demonstrating hand-finishing. I was instantly hooked and knew straight away, that was what I wanted to do! It's been a long hard road since then, with ill health, un-employment, struggling to live by wheeling and dealing buying and selling old books and prints, but about six to eight years later I opened my current business. Within eight months of opening I had my heart attack and that was nearly it. The employment service paid for me to spend a whole week with Pete Binghan learning everything he could teach me about hand finishing and more important how to make it pay. From then on I never looked back. Like they say the rest is history.

It's not just Ebay though, is it.

I get so much stuff that I instantly recognise as carp - stuff bought from the door to door 'art students' including rip offs (and quite good rip offs too) of artists like Govinder, Mackenzie Thorpe, Doug Hyde, Linda Jane A-Z etc etc.

'Originals' bought on holiday - the stuff on blue canvas - all discussed here and TFG over and over - the customer likes it - loves it even - some of us even import and sell it FGS!

Just shut your mind and do what you do - don't make the customer feel a mug - you may think they have been taken for one, and, depending on what they paid, they may well have been - but those cases are rare - they've done the ebay thing because it was cheap - be thankful it never came framed.

I had a Hong Kong oil in today - of Hong Kong harbour actually - I actually found it offensive! The customers (Husband & Wife) took over an hour to decide on a frame - 20 mins of that was devoted to me explaining the methods of making it frame-able! (They just thought I could slap a frame around it as it was - maybe staple the thing in to the rebate or something)

They are having it done in the 'normal' way - stretched across battens, framed - no glass. I priced it, due to the time they took, as if it were mounted and framed behind glass, plus stretching, and they never blinked. It's something that will remind them of an un-repeatable trip, probably.

I've posted photos I have taken on this and many other forums - anyone could copy one and if one came in to frame, I'd raise an eyebrow - but that's about all I'd do!

kev@frames wrote:i had a heidelberg letterpress in the shed ...

Sure, we all have one of those...

I have oft times wondered how you made the transition from diving to framing, Kev. Really enjoyed hearing the story tonight!

Not your average framer wrote:I will frame these things if a customer asks me to do so, but I do like to make sure that they are properly informed before they spend a lot more than the value of the item before they commit themselves to spending their money with me.

(emphasis mine)

Mark, can I ask you to clarify what you mean by the emphasised phrase above, please?

As it stands, it reads to me as though you are aiming to scale the price of the framing to be somewhere approaching equivalent to the monetary value of the item being framed, if you get my gist.

Also, do you focus more on the monetary value of a piece cf. the value the customer perceives it to have? And out of curiosity, are many of your customers collectors/art buffs?

Personally don't think it is our responsibility to inform customers as to the credibility of the work they bring to us. If our opinion is asked then we might put forward a view but even this is treading on thin ice. On occasions when Ive been asked about the provenance of a work I suggest the work be shown to a professional valuer.

We are not the Art Police here. What would be the next step? "Sorry I cant frame this because it's a pile of poo"!.................mind you
All we can do is to offer a service suitable to the perceived value (monetary or personally)of the work.

That is unless its calculated into your pricing program?

My immpression is that nowadays people in general are more canny when it comes to art. They know a knock-off when they see it and are under no illusions. Nobody has brought me a HK oil for years. I sometimes get folks with old prints they have got from car boot sales and the like. In their minds, old=valuable. A chap came round with one recently. Typical texturised lithographic print about 1920's. With manky frame that had been given several coats of equally manky-coloured paint in it's career.
"My mate had one just the same and he got £800 for it on EBay".
He wasn't best pleased when I told him what it was and it might be worth a fiver with a following wind. Trouble is, this type of print when it's faded a bit and aquired a nice patina of muck has a look not unlike a 'real' painting. An experienced framer could spot one from 100 paces though.

The best one I remember (going back a bit) was a gentleman who wanted a 'nice little watercolour' valueing. He arrived with a little frame about 5x4, no mount. Inside was what was obviously (to me anyway) a clipping from a magazine. Not even a glossy mag, pulp stuff. You could see the dots. It had faded to pastel shades which must have given him the 'watercolour' idea. What was really funny was the actual image which was Renoir's '"Luncheon at the boating party". Not exactly an unknown painting. Cropped down so that all that was left was the girl with the little dog and the guy with the sweaty vest. I told him all this and from the look on his face I could tell this was not the answer he was expecting.
He then proceded to say something like: "I take on board what you are saying, but I will seek another opinion". I said no more. At least someone else would also have a giggle.

Slightly off topic, I'm aware of a guy who used ebay and collectors forums to scam many people to the tune of £250k of fake prints

He has recently been charged on over 50 counts of fraud and deception, time will tell if justice is served on this guy

Over twenty years ago when I was working freelance a London Framing company who also had a small publishing setup got me to create fake plate marks around prints by cutting a piece of acrylic and running it trough the rollers together with the print not sure if it was a dodgy practice or not but they did sell very well.

gesso wrote:Over twenty years ago when I was working freelance a London Framing company who also had a small publishing setup got me to create fake plate marks around prints by cutting a piece of acrylic and running it trough the rollers together with the print not sure if it was a dodgy practice or not but they did sell very well.

There's a big difference between a 'fake' and a 'forgery'. I've seen lot's of repro's with fake platemarks. Not intended to decieve, but to add to the look. Nowt wrong with that. I do a lot of gilding with gold powders and sometimes I put in some fake overlap marks, but I never claim that it's water gilding. I can do very convincing fake ('faux' sounds nicer) birdseye maple and walnut verneer. I never claim that it's real verneer. I think it looks better than the modern real stuff that's available anyway.

prospero wrote:
I can do very convincing fake ('faux' sounds nicer) birdseye maple and walnut verneer. I never claim that it's real verneer. I think it looks better than the modern real stuff that's available anyway.

Is that with papers or a quick flick of a brush?....
Don't answer that if it's giving too many of your secrets away!

Rose and hollis do pre veneered mouldings that are unfinished .....more the hunting type moulding or photo frames for mum & dads wedding anniversary. I was thinking of doing some faux (your right it sound better than fake) tortoise shell with oils as the acrylic tortoise shell is getting very expensive.

I have a tortoishell (ish) sample that I did yonks ago. It just turned out that way. Trouble is, I have no idea how I did it.

I'll post a piccy of it and the mock maple. (In another topic).

I have some u/f R&H maple. It stains up great, but you can never quite get the look of old maple that has matured for a 100 years. Old maple frames are worth having.

Piccies Here

The tortoiseshell one is more an immpression than an straight imitation.

Moglet wrote: (emphasis mine)

Mark, can I ask you to clarify what you mean by the emphasised phrase above, please?

As it stands, it reads to me as though you are aiming to scale the price of the framing to be somewhere approaching equivalent to the monetary value of the item being framed, if you get my gist.

Also, do you focus more on the monetary value of a piece cf. the value the customer perceives it to have? And out of curiosity, are many of your customers collectors/art buffs?

Hi Aine,

It's very simple, if a customer comes to me to get something which they think is valuable framed, by in fact it's something totally worthless. Then they want to spend a lot on framing it because such a valuable item must be framed with no expenses spared. My question is this, what does it say about me if I take advantage of their gulibility and set out to encourage them to spend as much as possible on getting it framed while failing to tell them the truth about what it really is?

Even worse what happens to my reputation, if the true value is later discovered and the customer then realises that I not only must have known this, but chose to take unfair advantage of them to make more money out of them. I suspect that if you do this on a regular basis and the word will eventually get around that you are someone not to be trusted.

Customers come to us expecting us to be experts at what we do. Does this not place certain responsibilities on us to observe the best standards in all that we do and that includes our honesty and integrity towards the interests of our customers, who expect to be able to trust us.

Thanks for the background information, Mark. It helps me to better understand your earlier comments on this thread.

I think that in the situations you described in your latest post make the dichotomy much clearer: in some ways you are caught between a rock and a hard place. Indeed, it appears that when presented with an 'artwork' of questionable pedigree, there is no guaranteed way that, in such circumstances, you can avoid some form of customer upset.

I have a very different problem. I don't get many "serious art" customers, if you know what I mean. However, many people come in to me to frame (sometimes very lovely) prints/portraits etc. that they have bought for sixpence while on holiday, and I am faced with explaining to them why the framing costs much more than the item being framed!

Moglet wrote:many people come in to me to frame (sometimes very lovely) prints/portraits etc. that they have bought for sixpence while on holiday, and I am faced with explaining to them why the framing costs much more than the item being framed!

Hi Aine,

I know what you mean! It's quite a difficult one, but I keep a range of cheaper mouldings for that very purpose. I find that if you show them different options at different prices, then they will usually pick their own compromise between quality and price. I refuse to sell below my normal mark-up, so some of these are only contract quality, but it's their choice!

If they want it really cheap, I've even got one colour of Optimat mountboard, whic is a very cheap, budget quality mountboard which I have in stock for cheapskates, including some local artists, etc. The bevels go brown after a while, but they do get told this!

Still 'n' all, it must be lovely to be framing for people who want something really lovely. I jump for joy when I get those opportunities. And it feels great that customers who have put their trust in you to give them something really special are so pleased with the finished article.

I understand the fustration when someone brings in a piece that has cost next to nothing to buy and question why it has to 'costs soo much to frame' It also happens when someone (maybe they are related) brings in a piece. they tell you its just cost them x thousands of pounds but they don't want to spend much on the framing.

Last year a local farmer brought in a very nice Thorburn oil of partridges. It was beautiful. Quite small, about 12x18. I showed him a few options of my preference. The one I liked was a 2.5" louis pattern with a 1" flat liner with a cove on the sight edge. Muted gilt with a subtle grey wash. He liked it too but I think I quoted him about £90, which he didn't want to spend. Eventually he settled for the same frame without the liner, which brought it down to around £60.
Didn't look as good, but.....

Later on I got the full story. The painting wasn't his. He had it (and another big w/c) as security on a loan he had made to someone. He just wanted it framed so he could hang it and look at it while in his custody. It was probably worth 8-10k.

That was one job I would have enjoyed putting my all into. I would (nearly) have done it for free.
Don't it make you sick.