I recently took a painting to The UPS Store for them to pack and ship it to a museum it was being donated to. I gave them an envelope of the donation documents I signed to go to the museum with it. Now, I understood that they would put some sort of plastic layer on the glass, which is their SOP for flat glass, and assumed they would pack it from there and include the envelope.
Come to find out from the museum, they glued a plastic shipping envelope holder to the glass of the painting!! !!! :eek::mad: and put the envelope it in. Nice thought, but that glue isn’t meant to come off and it took the museum hours to remove the glue and they almost gave up and put in new glass.
What could they possibly have been thinking??? I am baffled. And pissed on behalf of the museum!
The *UPS Store *for packing and shipping a museum quality painting? What the hell were you thinking? I’ve shipped lots of stuff via almost any carrier there is, and used the UPS Store a number of times. Shipping valuable items that require special handling by people (often teenagers) that are getting paid around $ 7.00 an hour is not the most prudent plan. Your expectation for the level of expertise you anticipated in that circumstance is (IMO) somewhat unreasonable, You’re lucky it got there in one piece.
This was the middle-aged manager of the store, who is always there and seemed to be very responsible. Where would you recommend I go for special shipping services?
Most communities have at least one place that specializes in shipping pieces of art. I’d ask around at galleries and see who handles their shipping. If they do it themselves, maybe they’d do it for you for a small fee.
If I was shipping a painting, my first thought would be to go to a gallery/framer and ask them to pack it for shipping, since they’re supposed to know what they’re doing with preparing art for shipment. They would cost a bit, but I’d know that the painting would be properly packed. Then I’d take the package to UPS.
Letting the UPS Store pack anything would be a crapshoot, it seems to me. You might get the careful middle-aged manager who owns the place but you might also get the part-time teen who’s not interested in packing things that day. The manager might try to be careful, but in the end, is not a specialist in packing art. For hardy things, such as books and documents and toys, who does the packing doesn’t really matter; but for fragile or unusual or unique (or all three) items, I think I’d see a specialist for the packing.
That would have been the best way, I guess. I guess I just didn’t think it took a museum curator to know not to stick permanent glue to the actual item you’re shipping. :smack: