It was our practice when a customer came in asking us to quote a price on molding and/or casting into bronze a particular sculpture, we would take the original into our make-shift photo studio to photograph it and to take measurements and make notes about it. (This was prior to digital photography – we took photos with a single lens reflex camera, and developed photos from the negatives.) The photos and measurements and notes, along with our quote, were retained in the customer’s file.
One day a customer came in with his clay model of a fairly elaborate sculpture of a native American paddling a birchbark canoe, filled with animal skins, through a rapid. It was about thirty inches in length, well rendered and depicted good action.
We provided him with a price quote and he said he would bring it back later, because he had some “small detailing” yet to do on it.
He brought it back in about six months later, and said he was ready for us to proceed. I gave him a price for our doing so, whereupon he expressed dismay that the price was higher than he had expected, and presented a copy of our previous quote.
“But this is a different piece than we quoted before,” I said.
“Oh, no …it’s exactly the same sculpture. I just added some detail into his robe.”
I retrieved his file and showed him the photos of the original piece. The original canoe was about five inches shorter, and contained only one man, not two. He studied the photos and replied, “Damn! You SOB’s keep good records.”
Leave a Reply