Gotta love a man with a big di-
ploma.
matt, 11x17 is an unusual but still considered standard size here in the US. You could buy a real-live frame (assembled and everything) quite inexpensively (until you count in the exchange rate, which I think would make it three years’ Canadian salary 
).
Esprix
“Oh, Nair the Stairs”. Snicker.
The McGill bookstore charges triple everything.
ivylass, I broke out my Latin dictionary and… I think you’re right.
Oh, for fuck’s sakes. You mean to tell me after I spent all that money, I have to do it again?!
:smack: Me, obviously.
The backing seems to be just corrugated cardboard. Is that the sort of stuff I should replace? If so, with what? And why does it need to not be in direct contact with the glass?
Um, where’s jin wicked-doesn’t she work in a framing store?
Okay, so we have Buyer Beware. Baccalaure has something to do with graduating, irrumabo is oral sex related, and I’m going to take a wild guess that pedicabo has something to do with eating feet, or walking head.
Hmmm. Nope, this one is too big and unwieldy to move on my own. I’m going to need some help here!
Oy… MY official diploma (Excelsior College, NY) is 8.5x11, on a nice simulated-leather folder. Though that’s because I never finished my degree in my original school (JHU) where at the time (1983-84) it would have been some oddball size/proportions and included (for some reason) a separate woodcut engraving of the school-mascot bluejay.
The U. of P.R. diploma, OTOH, is also letter-size, but it’s in Latin, making it very impressive. My mother and brother have those.
HOWEVER… matt is right, if you pay for a frame, you pay for a FRAME, not for a kit to assemble a frame.
Matt_mcl, I am an ex-custom framer. (Who actually owns all of the equipment for a frame shop, believe it or not!) I will now don my Super Framing Cape now and try to save you.
Your first mistake was taking it to a large chain craft store frame shop; this is a frequent mistake, so I will lay no blame upon your already burdened shoulders. We’re not all wealthy enough to afford quality custom framing for every artifact we own.
But the fact of the matter is, I have taken apart many cheaply framed diplomas, ten years or so after they were framed, and the paper is brittle, the diploma itself is faded, and the back has a lovely brown patina from that cardboard you mentioned. Cardboard is pretty much the worst stuff you could put near a piece of art you’d like to keep; lots of chemicals are involved in its manufacture, and when you enclose them within a frame, these chemicals “outgas” onto your artwork. Thus gradually degrading your diploma.
And you should always use a mat to separate the artwork from the glass, b/c moisture condenses on both sides of the glass and can gradually ruin your artwork. Occasionally, the artwork will even stick to the glass, which means you can’t even get the artwork off the glass without ripping it to pieces. (Yes, it’s happened, and it’s ugly.)
If you would like to preserve your diploma to the best of your ability, and still display it (b/c the only truly safe place to store any artwork is in an archival box in a cool dark place), I suggest taking it to a local custom framer when you have the money to do it right. I know that’s not what you wanted to hear, b/c it may mean you can’t display your lovely new diploma immediately, but it’s a question of how long you’d like it to last. Damage from a bad framing job is often irreversible.
For maximum protection, you should request archival cotton rag mats, UV-coated glass, and archival rag backing. (“Rag” mats are mats made from cotton, not paper; paper mats turn brown and outgas in a slower but similar manner to cardboard.) UV glass is pretty much what it sounds like; consider it sunglasses for your artwork. And the backing for an archival piece should be the same rag mat material. No cardboard should be involved anywhere.
(And there’s lots more that goes into archivally framing a piece, but I don’t want to bore you with all that. If you find an intelligent and well trained local framer they’ll explain all of this to you. And if they sound like they don’t know what they’re talking about, find another one who does.)
Based on the size of your diploma, I’d guess a job like this would run you between $125 and $200 bucks. Yes, I know it sounds like a shitload of money. I’m sorry. What I used to remind my customers is that the diploma itself cost a hell of a lot more than that. 
The guidelines I have mentioned here apply to pretty much any artwork you’d like to have around more than a few years. Don’t make the mistake of spending so much on artwork that you can’t afford to frame it correctly. Don’t correlate the price of the framing to the price of the artwork, either; if you love it, preserve it. If it’s “disposable” artwork, like mass-produced posters or stuff you want to hang in your bathroom, find the cheapest framing you can. If you can’t afford to frame it immediately, do yourself a favor and wait til you can. If I had a nickel for every person with faded, browning, crumpling artwork who seemed outraged or heartbroken that the money they saved framing their beloved photographs and artwork is still not enough money to salvage it now…
Well, let’s just say I wouldn’t be bartending now.
Maybe when that diploma gets destroyed in 5 years due to crappy framing, it will give you the urge to go out and get a new one to replace it! :D.
Audrey is 'xactly right. 
My high school diploma and my bachelor’s from La Roche are still in their leather folders-is that a safe storage?
My BS is still in its leather folder. It’s lying on a nylon back and has a piece of plastic over the front. It’s close to 20 years old and still seems to be in perfect condition. Likewise my high school diploma.
My Master’s and PhD certificates are in a fire safe in my mini-storage, but they were presented in very similar packages.
My wife thinks I should frame them all and put them up in my office, along with my various awards and such. The head of the English department has informed me that this would be the “professional” thing to do. Audrey has confirmed for me that keeping them in their current state is far preferable to the cost of framing them is such a way as to preserve them as well as the folders in which they came.
For those still after a translation:
**"‘Be aware, Bachelor of Arts,’ you might say. Well, I will fuck you in the ass and make you give me a blowjob."
:o
FWIW, both my LLB and my BCom are lying loose on a dusty shelf in my study. They languished in the map pocket of a friend’s car for a good month or so after my graduation; I got myself dropped off at a pub after the ceremony and abandoned my degree certificates to the car.
If you’re concerned, Guin, I’d recommend stopping by a frame shop and picking up two pieces of 2-ply rag mat–thinner than regular matboard but thicker than paper–and just sandwiching your diplomas between them and putting them right back into your leather folder. You could also get some archival acid-free tissue paper for the same effect.
Neither one should cost you more than about $5. (The most expensive thing about a mat is the “hole” in the middle; a piece of uncut matboard is not very expensive at all.)
This applies to any artwork, again. Rag mat is not only archival but it also absorbs anything that might otherwise be absorbed into the paper, so it serves two purposes. Consider it a kind of filter. It’s made of cotton so it’s naturally absorbent, and pretty much PH-neutral…which is why a lot of people who dig up their old photographs out of Grandma’s hope chest are surprised to discover what good condition they’re in. The natural fibers in Grandma’s linen will absorb anything before the photograph does, and the lack of light and moisture prevents degradation of the image and the paper.
And I know this is probably boring you all, but for anyone thinking of framing old family photographs like this…a much better, cheaper alternative is to photocopy them and frame that instead. You can frame it far more cheaply, and you keep the original in its pristine condition; photocopies fade a lot more quickly than photographs, but they’re easily replaced.
And I’ll shut up now.
Thanks, Narrad, for the translation. I shall be able to sleep tonight.
Audrey, would it hold off on D(evastation) Day if I bought the matte and backing you recommend? From what you recommend I could do it cheaply, and I could get a narrow matte that I could fit into the existing frame. (The text of the diploma has some white space around it.)
My diploma is still in the original packaging it arrived in. (Thin paper envelope inside a stiff cardboard mailing envelope.) I considered framing it, but…I think it would look pretty absurd on my bedroom wall.
Congratulations on your graduation, matt.
Ooh, I’ve been itchin’ to make this bitchin’ for awhile…I escaped my undergraduate institution with a degree in bidness, it’s a big ol’ degree (11x17 believe it or not) and I like it. It’s got my name, and some pretty writing, and a fancy gold seal, and all in all it is an impressive document. I wouldn’t mind having this particular document somewhere on a wall…I mean, it’s no Van Gogh, and it’s kinda flashy what with the scrollies and flourishes and swirls, but s’pretty cool. Funny though, it also symbolizes that I have gotten an education, relating to numbers, coincidence of coincidences, which you’d think might mean they give me a little credit, but check it: The MWC bookstore wanted us to pay $285 dollars for a frame for this degree.
pause for dramatic effect
Jaw drops. $285?!!? You must be kidding me! Oh, and it was beauty too, all covered with gilt and shiny stuff. Really a stunning piece standing alone, almost blinding complete with diploma. But for that kinda money I could buy well… a plane ticket to Paris (if I got a good deal off the internet,) about a third of a working car, at least a months worth of food at the fast food establishment of my choice, the possibilities are nearly infinite, and scratch that, I’m pretty creative, they ARE infinite.
At first I thought the fix was simple, my needs were modest. I skipped gaily to Wal-mart…hmm, $10 plain black frame, no prob…nothing of the appropriate size…Target, Michael’s same problem….Oh, I know MISH MISH! They specialize in doing stuff to paper, surely they will have a frame of the proper size. Oh, but no. I was to be disappointed yet again, they had a KIT requiring tools and time that you could MAKE a frame of any size that you desired. [cue Eddie Izzard voice] The entire point of frames is that they be pre-made though, isn’t it? [/Izzard voice] If I wanted to make my own frame I would go and chop down a tree, buy lots of tools and watch Bob Villa religiously. Since I don’t do this…I think it’s easy enough to say that I have no interest whatsoever in the construction of my frame.
Those clever bastards have quite a racket going, they make a document to which they provide the only workable solution frame-wise. They must have some sort of under-the-table deal worked out with retailers everywhere to keep this kind of stranglehold on the frames market. I mean, somebody could make a killing on any sort of commercially available 11x17 frame. I understand, if you want a mat (possibly two mats, you can get those now apparently, in complimentary colors no less), and some gilt, and maybe even a non-glare coating on your frame, you need to be prepared to pay for it (hell, you paid a king’s ransom for the degree in comparison) but if all you want is the world’s ugliest simple black frame, to keep the silly thing out of harm’s way, what is wrong with a $10 crap frame?
Well, I showed them, I sandwiched the holy document between two industrial sized cereal boxes (although on a tangent, where the hell did I find them? I don’t eat cereal, much less industrial sized boxes of the stuff. Curious…very curious indeed.) and stuffed the whole mess behind a filing cabinet. That’ll show you, ya price gouging diploma-mongers!
*Yipes, now I notice that I’ve potentially done terrible things to the precious…sigh, off to find some of this “rag business” because for all my big talk, I am rather fond of the precious…I mean, er, my diploma.
Matt, I’m sensing your eagerness to get this on the wall.
A cotton rag mat for your diploma that’s 11X17, plus an uncut mat for the backing, is going to run you about $25/$35 bucks. (I notice you’re in Canada, so I’m not precisely sure of what it would cost over there…consider my figures the American estimate. :)) And I haven’t seen your diploma, so I don’t know how much white space you have around it, but a mat that’s an inch or less in width is kind of flimsy, difficult to cut, and doesn’t look particularly good.
I don’t say this to be discouraging; I know you don’t want to spend a million dollars and you’d like your diploma on the wall. But I hesitate to tell you to spend more money on something that still isn’t the best solution; even if you buy the rag mats, you still don’t have UV glass…and by the time you get all three, plus the acid-free archival rice tape to mount your diploma, etc., etc., even if you knew how to mount and assemble all this stuff…you’re better off waiting til you can afford to pay somebody else to do it, because it won’t be that much cheaper and it won’t look nearly as good.
I’m not going to tell you to do it or not to do it; it’s your diploma and your call. A lot of people find custom framing cost-prohibitive, period. I know it’s expensive! And there really isn’t an in-between solution, b/c like I said, once you assemble all the materials and tools to do it yourself, you haven’t saved that much money and it isn’t going to look like you spent what you did.
So, in short, anything you can do for it (like the rag mats) will be better than your first option. Just remember that your best bet for its long-term survival is to do it all.