Models for Sale
For more than twenty years Fine Art Models has had a policy of only one price. No dealers, no distributors and whether you bought one model or a hundred models the prices were always the same. The objective was to preserve the value of the model because we see it as a legitimate investment in art. And it is.
In an effort to continue this policy, on our former web site we hand a provision for second-hand models. We would post previously owned models on that page provided the original customer or the estate of the original customer owned the model. Many times the model would be sold, but no one told us and the model remained on the site as if it hadn’t been sold. If someone other than the original owner approached us we would turn them down for a variety of reasons, with the most important being the condition of the model.
The reason this was so important is that we facilitated the sale of the model, but we didn’t control the transfer of the model. And quite frankly, we had to assume the model was in proper operating condition. In the last couple of years, we have had two bottom feeder attorneys suggest to us that we were somehow responsible for the shipping of the model from the customer to the new owner. You can imagine my response!
Recently I had a customer call me to complain that one of our models was on eBay and it was priced too low. The seller wasn’t a customer of ours and the caller suggested I buy the model to preserve the price. So now I’m to run around to every site on the internet and every auction buying up Fine Art Models because people selling them don’t know what they are worth and people selling them have no clue how to sell them?
With our new website, every model to be offered on our website will go through Fine Art Models to avoid the problems of the past. Yes, we will recover our costs for this service, but it will only be our costs. Not an unreasonable expectation I feel. Thus, if there is an estate with a ship model and they have no way to ship it, we will work out a plan that insures the model arrives at the new owner in good condition. We’ll advise sellers and the buyer on how the model should be packed if we aren’t packing it. And we won’t limit this to existing customers as a non-customer can sell their FAM model through us for a fee, but only if we inspect it and handle the shipping to the new customer. This way people won’t have to use the worst possible means of selling it……eBay.
If you wish to sell your Fine Art Model, then contact us via phone or email and we’ll be happy to work with you. You will need to fill out a form, which we can send to you.
Gary Kohs, President