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Who is everyone using these days for Art Resto/Conservation work? Suggestions?
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52 posts in this topic

On 10/23/2021 at 9:53 AM, stinkininkin said:

Well, I'm guessing this topic is going to get shut down at any moment. Before that happens...

...For what it's worth, I've used Gordan Christman numerous times. He does good work, but it can take a while. I will sheepishly admit it never occurred to me ask about any insurance he carries. It's a fair concern in hindsight. Gordan is local for me, so I guess it felt safer than shipping art off to another city or state. Not logical I suppose, but over the course of 15-20 years of restorations, I've never had a problem. Chalk it up to good luck, which is much cheaper than insurance. Until it's not.

Thanks Scott, 

All that time negotiation contracts and reviewing cases, looking for the thing that can go wrong, to try and protect against it just makes me lock-up mentally on deciding to send it off. If a piece is of out of my control not having it covered if it's damaged or lost is scary with unique items, for me. Hard to break that mindset once it's locked in. 

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On 10/23/2021 at 8:03 AM, comix4fun said:

Thanks Scott, 

All that time negotiation contracts and reviewing cases, looking for the thing that can go wrong, to try and protect against it just makes me lock-up mentally on deciding to send it off. If a piece is of out of my control not having it covered if it's damaged or lost is scary with unique items, for me. Hard to break that mindset once it's locked in. 

I guarantee that if I had to package up and mail all the things I had Gordon work on over the years, as well as worry about the return mailing, my anxiety would have been orders of magnitude higher. Your concerns are not unreasonable.

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On 10/23/2021 at 8:03 AM, comix4fun said:

Thanks Scott, 

All that time negotiation contracts and reviewing cases, looking for the thing that can go wrong, to try and protect against it just makes me lock-up mentally on deciding to send it off. If a piece is of out of my control not having it covered if it's damaged or lost is scary with unique items, for me. Hard to break that mindset once it's locked in. 

On a tangential note, would you be covered by your own insurance for something like restoration? Would CIS or whoever cover you? 

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It appears that many people would like to pay amateur prices but get professional service (and liability protection).

Sure, me too.

People do each other favors and low/no cost all the time, but they usually know each and return other similarly low/no cost favors too.

Sure, me too.

I do think you get what you pay for in the business world, the non-favor market, most often.

Want to do some professional business? Then pay professional prices...cheapskates :makepoint:

And finally, I do wonder if those that offer professional services* typically charge amateur prices for any/all comers?

 

* and thus the income that funds collecting all sorts of nice 1%er original art

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On 10/23/2021 at 10:21 AM, stinkininkin said:

I guarantee that if I had to package up and mail all the things I had Gordon work on over the years, as well as worry about the return mailing, my anxiety would have been orders of magnitude higher. Your concerns are not unreasonable.

Thanks for trying to give some positive advice, it is helpful. 

I didn't think it was too unreasonable to expect someone operating a business to carry the minimum amount of insurance coverage or that expectation was overly controversial. It really isn't. We're all willing to pay a reasonable amount for services which includes basic responsible business measures (like insurance, proper shipping materials, timely responses to queries, accurate timelines) without having to shoehorn our comic art restoration and conservation needs into the fine art arena where the cost could very likely exceed the value of the artwork. I think taking all of those factors into consideration, well, that's just being smart and thoughtful. Pretty much every reasonable person would likely agree. 

I'd love to have the local drop off and pick up angle that you have, for sure. 

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On 10/23/2021 at 11:49 AM, comix4fun said:

I didn't think it was too unreasonable to expect someone operating a business to carry the minimum amount of insurance coverage or that expectation was overly controversial.

Not unreasonable at all, but most are Pollyannish and don't consider downside risk until it's too late or an insurance salesman scares them with dire "what if" scenarios. Of course not everyone "operating a business" is really organized (with their presiding jurisdiction) as one, nor reports their income generating activity from such either. One should determine what the definition of "a business" is and what it must include to be such, before presuming to dictate granular matters such as "minimum amount of insurance coverage" (which would be perhaps quite difficult to get coverage for from a third-party insurer when one isn't even legally organized as "a business" to begin with?) Or is this all...unreasonable? ;) 

On 10/23/2021 at 11:49 AM, comix4fun said:

We're all willing to pay a reasonable amount for services which includes basic responsible business measures (like insurance, proper shipping materials, timely responses to queries, accurate timelines) without having to shoehorn our comic art restoration and conservation needs into the fine art arena where the cost could very likely exceed the value of the artwork.

The market has already told you the price for what you want, it's more than reasonable by definition (Supply and Demand, 101), the greater than 12 months backlog proves this too; you just don't want to pay it. Auto insurers "scrap" vehicles all the time, when the cost to repair exceeds present value, why? Because they, the insurer, do not want to pay it. This is not exactly apples:apples*, but close enough to make the point. Not every item is worth improving for the cost of that improvement, particularly for labor intensive specialized services in The First World.

So until somebody with the requisite skillset/resume and all the requisite trappings of "a business" is willing to enter the market and dilute The Market Price but not the quality: SOL. Thus patience is required and I wonder (but not really) if the wait for that will be more than a year too :) 

The End.

 

*only an dummy would "scrap" original art because the cost to restore exceeded the value.

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On 10/23/2021 at 9:31 AM, comix4fun said:

So, your answer to my question of your actual level knowledge or experience in the area of riot or unrest related arrest or citation procedures is "NONE" then? 
That would have been easier to post I think. 
I didn't need the smoke screen further obscuring my thread. Perhaps start your own thread on this topic. 

There was nothing obscuring the answer to your question. I don’t think the question is relevant to the basic issue of Dennis’s competence, so it wasn’t worthy of direct comment. Do I know of cops fudging things? Yes, Conveniently forgetting things? Yes. In one case, it led to someone being placed under house arrest, the stress of which, in combination with a variety of medical conditions, killed her. I acted as her third party custodian for 22 months beforehand. None of it was in the context of crowd control, but frankly, I don’t care. To be clear, I have respect for the police and the work they do. Fund them, please. And no, I don’t approve of the barging into the Capitol by crowds and causing damage. But, I also know of not so hot human beings who do very good things and visa-versa. If it doesn’t impacting the work, or the time of delivery for the product, or go to inherent trustworthiness—something which is not related to low level violence (no guns)— then I am hard pressed to see what it matters.

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On 10/23/2021 at 12:25 PM, vodou said:

Not unreasonable at all, but most are Pollyannish and don't consider downside risk until it's too late or an insurance salesman scares them with dire "what if" scenarios. Of course not everyone "operating a business" is really organized (with their presiding jurisdiction) as one, nor reports their income generating activity from such either. One should determine what the definition of "a business" is and what it must include to be such, before presuming to dictate granular matters such as "minimum amount of insurance coverage" (which would be perhaps quite difficult to get coverage for from a third-party insurer when one isn't even legally organized as "a business" to begin with?) Or is this all...unreasonable? ;) 

The market has already told you the price for what you want, it's more than reasonable by definition (Supply and Demand, 101), the greater than 12 months backlog proves this too; you just don't want to pay it. Auto insurers "scrap" vehicles all the time, when the cost to repair exceeds present value, why? Because they, the insurer, do not want to pay it. This is not exactly apples:apples*, but close enough to make the point. Not every item is worth improving for the cost of that improvement, particularly for labor intensive specialized services in The First World.

So until somebody with the requisite skillset/resume and all the requisite trappings of "a business" is willing to enter the market and dilute The Market Price but not the quality: SOL. Thus patience is required and I wonder (but not really) if the wait for that will be more than a year too :) 

The End.

 

*only an dummy would "scrap" original art because the cost to restore exceeded the value.

I once had a Sunday Phantom section that would have cost more to repair than it was worth. So, I threw it in to a package of trade material. The other person did something similar by sending me some bizarre art he didn’t know how to unload either.

Insurance, I expect, would be cost prohibitive for most restorers for the kind of work we need. 

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On 10/22/2021 at 7:44 PM, cstojano said:

It's interesting that Felix's comment made no sense to me until the subsequent post about Dennis. Reading backwards, this is a weird thread.

Isn't there a list that someone always posts when people ask about restoration. This name is often mentioned.

 

GORDON G. CHRISTMAN

RESTORATION & CONSERVATION

330 SOUTH HORNE STREET APT L

OCEANSIDE CA 92054

1-760 458 2290

Yes Gordon is really good. I used his services before. 👍🏼

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On 10/22/2021 at 7:44 PM, cstojano said:

It's interesting that Felix's comment made no sense to me until the subsequent post about Dennis. Reading backwards, this is a weird thread.

Isn't there a list that someone always posts when people ask about restoration. This name is often mentioned.

 

GORDON G. CHRISTMAN

RESTORATION & CONSERVATION

330 SOUTH HORNE STREET APT L

OCEANSIDE CA 92054

1-760 458 2290

I am fortunate to live near Gordon - he is the best and most of the largest dealers use his services!

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Too bad this thread got derailed. Perhaps I should've kept it buried.

I'm also interested in doing some resto work so I contacted Eclipse Paper mentioned here. Their website says they do free estimates so I requested one many weeks and never heard back. They may or may not be in business. If anyone has used them recently, it'd be great to know.

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