Sunday, November 22, 2015

The Crane

Getting into detail about the imperfections of an object is important to avoid customer disappointment, but in this case I believe it worked against me.

When I carefully cleaned up this brass coated iron wall hanging I noticed there were fine scratches from scrubbing on the surface and I honestly put that in my listing. That was last year summer and the thing didn’t sell. Hauled in earlier that year by my neighbour.

I tried again last September and had a feeling that I should avoid the word ‘scratch’ to describe the slight damage. I decided on a more neutral ‘visible signs of wear and age’. I think that worked as I sold the crane in about two weeks. But when I dug it up from storage it had lost a bit of shine and developed a few more spots after the photos were taken, so I was a bit worried about the buyer’s reaction. But she just held it up and exclaimed: what a cool thing!

2 comments:

Rachelle Strauss said...

What a lovely piece; I'm sure your buyer was thrilled. I was interviewed the other day and we were discussing the difference in people's reactions between 'I bought this in a charity shop' to 'It's vintage'! Looks like you've discovered the same. I love the idea of the scratches on my dining table telling a story, for example, but others pay to have their tables French polished to restore to 'perfection'. It's all about perception ;)

Le-Chat said...

Hi Rachelle, thanks for stopping by! I totally agree with you that real wear tells a story. I'm much in favour of leave as is if possible and I can't always appreciate the made to look old makeovers of t2t-ers.

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