Charged 145 for a hare print and the framing place down the road charges 160 for the frame alone
So I'm after getting the quote back from the framer for a batch of six, and it's 160 a frame. The print inside it is 145. I priced that print maybe four years ago and never touched it since, because the ones who buy it buy it at the market and they know the price, and changing it felt like a whole thing I didn't want to have.
Meanwhile the lino went up, the paper went up, the ink went up, and the glass of a Saturday morning when I'm standing in the rain in Salthill went up too if you want to count that, and I do, because a wet market day is four hours of my life.
The mad part is the framer is dead right to charge it. He's got the same problem as me only he's after solving it.
I'm not raising it to 200, that's a jump too far and I'd lose the regulars. I'm thinking 175 in the new year and just eating the flak for a month or two. My wife says I should have done it two years ago. She's not wrong but she says that about most things.
Anyone else sitting on a price they set back when diesel was cheaper and the head was lighter and just never getting round to it?
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The framing costing more than the print is not really the framer's fault and not really yours either, it is just that you have been selling at a four year old price while everything underneath it moved. I would separate the two numbers in your head. The 145 is what the work is worth as an object you made, the 160 is what it costs to protect and present it, and they were never meant to be compared.
What I would actually look at is the lino and the paper, because that is where the four years of drift has eaten you. If you have never re-run the arithmetic since you set 145, you are almost certainly selling at a loss on the materials alone now, before your four hours in the rain count for anything. The market regulars knowing the price is not a reason to hold it, it is a reason to raise it once, clearly, and let the ones who value it follow you. I did this with a small run of hellebore studies a while back and lost two buyers and kept the rest. The two I lost were the two who haggled.
Not saying you must move it. Just that "changing it felt like a whole thing" is the expensive option here, not the cheap one.
I'd push back a little on separating them so cleanly. The two numbers are only unrelated if you never frame anything, and the moment you sell a framed piece they are one object with one price. What the buyer compares is the total, and 305 for a framed hare print is a different animal at a market stall than 145 was. The four years of drift is the real point though, yes. Paper and lino quietly eating you is exactly how it goes, nothing dramatic, just a smaller margin each year until you notice.
ah stop, you've put the finger on the sore spot there. "one object with one price" and 305 is a different animal at a stall, that's it exactly. because you can't unsee it once someone says it out loud.
the thing I keep circling back to is the market crowd aren't buying a frame, they're buying the hare, and if I hand them a 305 thing they'll look at it like I'm after putting a saddle on it. but the framed ones do sell, and they sell to a different person entirely, the one who wants it up on the wall that evening. two different buyers and I've been pricing them like one.
so what I'm landing on, and tell me if this is daft, is leave the unframed at the market price and let the framed ones be their own beast with their own number. and if that number went up 40 quid since four years ago, well, so did everything else I bought in four years.
the quiet bit is the worst of it, you said it, nothing dramatic, just a smaller margin every year till you cop it. no bang, just a slow leak. I'd nearly rather the lino went up in one go and slapped me.
Ah here, you're right and I hate that you're right.
The separating them in the head thing is the bit that got me, because I've been doing the opposite for years. I'd look at the two numbers and go "sure the frame's nearly the price of the print, that's mad" and never once think about why the print number was still sitting there like it was 2021. Four years. Lino's gone up, paper's gone up, and I never reran the sums because the market crowd know the price and I didn't want the awkwardness of the fella who puts the price up on you at the stall.
But it's the lino and paper that's the real sting, yeah. If I actually sit down with a sheet and work out what a hare costs me to pull now versus what I charged when I set 145, I'd say I'm not far off paying myself in compliments.
So what do I do with the framed ones? Put the whole thing on the wall as one price and stop pretending they're two separate objects. Cheers for the shove, I needed it.