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...Cheap, Cheap, Cheap!
A recurring thread here at CS is the cheapness of rich people. Everybody has a story and some of them are truly jaw-dropping. My story is minor but most unexpected.
When museums take on travelling shows it's quite common to chain copies of the exhibition catalogue to a table or to walls in the galleries. It's a nice touch. Visitors can read more about an object in the show than a label presents. It also makes visitors aware of the catalogue. That can boost sales in the museum shop.
Most of these shows run for three or four months. By the time the show closes, the gallery catalogues are disgusting objects. They're dirty. They're limp. They're ragged. Rude comments have been written on them. Often, pages are missing. At the very least, a gallery copy of a catalogue will have a large hole drilled through the book to accommodate the chain. At the close of a show, a gallery copy is fit only for the recycle bin. Nobody in their right mind would want one.
Ergo, it was more than a surprise to hear a gentleman politely ask if he could be given a gallery copy of a catalogue for free. This person is a great supporter of the museum. I won't say he's wealthy. I will say that his net worth is at least the Gross National Product of several developing countries.
We could understand the request if several objects from his collection were in the show. Perhaps he wanted a grubby, sentimental souvenir of the thing. That wasn't the case. He wanted a copy of the catalogue of the show and freely admitted he didn't want to spend the $40 dollars a fresh copy from the shop would have cost.
As we say in Brookyn, go figure!
Did he get the grotty thing? Yes he did. We gave it to him with tongs.
A recurring thread here at CS is the cheapness of rich people. Everybody has a story and some of them are truly jaw-dropping. My story is minor but most unexpected.
When museums take on travelling shows it's quite common to chain copies of the exhibition catalogue to a table or to walls in the galleries. It's a nice touch. Visitors can read more about an object in the show than a label presents. It also makes visitors aware of the catalogue. That can boost sales in the museum shop.
Most of these shows run for three or four months. By the time the show closes, the gallery catalogues are disgusting objects. They're dirty. They're limp. They're ragged. Rude comments have been written on them. Often, pages are missing. At the very least, a gallery copy of a catalogue will have a large hole drilled through the book to accommodate the chain. At the close of a show, a gallery copy is fit only for the recycle bin. Nobody in their right mind would want one.
Ergo, it was more than a surprise to hear a gentleman politely ask if he could be given a gallery copy of a catalogue for free. This person is a great supporter of the museum. I won't say he's wealthy. I will say that his net worth is at least the Gross National Product of several developing countries.
We could understand the request if several objects from his collection were in the show. Perhaps he wanted a grubby, sentimental souvenir of the thing. That wasn't the case. He wanted a copy of the catalogue of the show and freely admitted he didn't want to spend the $40 dollars a fresh copy from the shop would have cost.
As we say in Brookyn, go figure!
Did he get the grotty thing? Yes he did. We gave it to him with tongs.
I have a nice poster, half price ! They had some nice little Mexican trinkets on sale - also half price. 
) They had one left. Not on sale, but it was the display one (from a glass case) and they knocked £4 off for a tiny bit of damage that myself and the sales woman both agreed was a 30 second repair with pritt stick (the box had peeled slightly).
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