Good evening.

Off-topic or uncivil posts have been deleted.

And topic check: "Have You Bought Art on a Cruise Ship?" :)

Thanks,

cblaisd
Senior Moderator

>"Funny how people put their noses down on buying art during a sea auction."
I am not looking down on a ship that sells art or those cruisers who buy it. I just choose not to sail on ships that have that (or Bingo) as an activity. There is a cruise for everyone. I am only interested in lectures, Trivia, and the odd cooking demonstration and un-watered down champagne.

I have never bought any art onboard but I did stumble across a lot of complaints regarding Park West. Do a web search on Park West lawsuit. Not pretty!

Andrea, did you write your article?
 

Hi, Andrea, I know this is an old thread and may be defunct at this point, but I'm curious if you got any feedback from people who purchased art at an on-board auction but never received it?

I am a travel agent and one of my clients contacted me to help him with an issue of this sort. He sailed with on the Celebrity Equinox in April and never got his art. When he tried to track it down he got the runaround for weeks. I got involved and we discovered that the auction house is in bankruptcy and that there are THOUSANDS of people who have been screwed by this. Not only that, I have found a number of comments online that lead me to believe this has been an on-going issues for over a year and yet Celebrity and other cruise lines CONTINUED to host the company (British American Auctions, but they also seem to have operated on P&O as British Australian Auctions). After a LOT of pestering Celebrity has now decided to refund peoples' money (ONLY if they file a claim, so please let people know they can do that). My issue at this point is that I don't think that's adequate.

I believe that the cruise line who continued to host this company even though they had not been delivering a lot of the art for MANY months requires more of response. They clearly profited royally from their cut of sales, so I hardly think their gesture of paying people back is enough. I wonder if this is something that might warrant a class action lawsuit against Celebrity or Royal Caribbean. Not so much because the auction company went bankrupt, but because they must have known there were serious problems (not even to mention the issue of whether the art is legitimate) and yet Celebrity continued to deliver the company a captive audience to sell to. Oh, and it turns out that British American hired the guy who was largely in charge of Park West to run the thing. I think that should have been a giant red flag.

If you have any suggestions on how to find others who have been cheated out of their money by this auction house (and their cruise partners) I would appreciate any suggestions.

i haven't & wont buy art on a cruise....

>"i haven't & won't buy art on a cruise...."

I won't sail on a cruise line which offers such schlock activities.

I bought a few pieces back in 1997. (Celebrity: Mercury sailing in the Western Caribbean). At the time, I paid approx $40-50/item and I got some freebies/$10 pieces. They looked nice. My late aunt bought some too. We only bid on pieces that looked nice (Rockwell prints, etc). Paid more to have them framed than it cost for the prints.

In recent years on NCL cruises, the prices Park West were asking were very high. Of course, they were hyping the Salvador Dali, Peter Max, Kincade, Picasso prints, etc that were in the 1000's. Way out of my league. Not too much sold that I could tell. Unlike 1997 when nearly everything sold at Auction.

The only painting I bought on land was a Thomas Kincade Christmas Cottage (1990) back in the mid 90's. I paid less than $300 for it and it looks nice. An art store was closing and they were originally asking $800 but for $275, I liked how it looked. I wanted to buy more paintings but I had limited funds at the time.

It's probably too late for the OP, but never ever buy art on a cruise ship. It's a scam.

I go in to get free champagne and laugh at the used-car-style antics successfully used by the salesmen to get people to buy.

Just came across this, and can't resist the temptation to put in my 2 cents worth.

We have been on one cruise (RCL). We took our 2 sons, both of whom were teenagers. Our younger son was interested in the auction, so we took him. We saw a print we liked, we bought it, and arranged for it to be framed and shipped to us.

It now sits in our dining room as a reminder of a great family holiday. i'm sure some people would say it is something other than "art". Frankly, I don't care. I bought it for my own reasons, and within my own budget.

I have no idea whether or not it is a good idea to attend cruise ship auctions, and to buy expensive works as investments. I suspect not.

However, that is the sort of thing which requires considerable research beforehand. It is not very prudent to buy expensive pieces of art on a ship based on the assertion by the auctioneer regarding the value of the work.

I have read some of the complaints, and it seems that people have done just that. I'm afraid I am not very sympathetic.

The whole thing is very simple really. If you see something you like, and the price seems reasonable, then you should probably buy it if it is legitimate. If others don't like it, well, maybe they should be more concerned what you think of their stuff. On the other hand, if you are trying to make money, you should probably make some effort to understand the nature of the business you choose, as well as the level of risk.

So, to those of you who have bought things you liked at cruise ship auctions, good for you. if others don't like what you bought, don't invite them to your home.

Cheers to all.

By the way, my first post. Now to find some cheap travel.

And that's the right attitude to have.

The last piece I bought is still sitting in the box at home. I simply have no place to hang it, but I love its theme.

And welcome to FT!

British American (from Celebrity Cuises) was started by the same people who used to supply Park West with onboard auctioneers.

The whole Park West approach has been questionable from the start. They hire auctioneers from a third party so they can claim a level of distance between what the actioneers say onboard and what is actually being sold. However, during the auction you will constantly hear the "Park West Gallery" name mentioned several times, and the company does send out the art, frame and even appraise it.

Any auction house that owns and appraises its own art is automatically not following typical art auction protocol.

The reason Celebrity and Royal Caribbean dropped Park West was too many lawsuits, many of them starting very soon now (end of 2011, early 2012). It amazed me when Celebrity went with British American - and they got ripped off. The company even left their auctioneers onboard and made Celebrity fly them home.

Meanwhile the British-American parent company had just received a round of funding by private equity. There is just WAY too much monkey business in the field of cruise ship art auctions for anyone to feel confident about the value of their purchase - unless you bought it purely for sentimental value.

I am the editor of CruiseMates.com and I have done several articles on this topic.

Kuki, is that you?

I would generally agree with this and think this is a reasonable approach and there is value in the intangibles of a reminder of a great experience
Personally, we've checked out the previews and love a number of the pieces but just have found the costs of "prints" don't fall within what we would fall under our own value definitions.

To the comments above, I'd like to add one additional point that has not been raised.

There are several companies that compile historical result lists from all auctions at reputable houses. One can typically subscribe to one of these services for less than $15 for a day or about $150 a year. You can commonly do basic checks, such as whether a specific artist is in the service's database, for free. Most, maybe all, of these services cover prints as well as original works.

Practically the first thing to do for any artist that has been around a while is to see what their works have been selling for. But, with these on-board auctions providing few advance lists of what is for sale and with on-board internet access being expensive or difficult, one of the very best tools available to consumers is generally not readily available. That alone should be a major caution.

My wife and I bought a picture on our last cruise
 

My wife and I bought a picture on our last cruise on the Grand Princess which was April 6th to April 21st. At the auction they had two mystery pictures where you can only see the back. If you win they will turn the pictures around and you can say whether you like them or not. I was the winner and one of the staff came over with pen in hand I told him that I didn't want them. There was no pressure from and I didn't buy. On the last day I went to the gallery and looked at the art. Again their is no pressure and if you need help somebody will assist you. I noticed that the prices had dropped and their was a lot of activity going on. I loved this one picture by Thomas Kinkaid called "Pools of Serenity" and I bought it, but I hadn't told my wife. When she saw it she agreed that it was a good buy. We took it to a local art store where they looked at it and told us that it was authentic. All pictures on ships have plexi-glass in them, otherwise they could get damaged in rough seas or moving them around. We decided to put UV protected glass in. We paid $490 US for the picture and after looking on the internet we realized what a good deal it was. I would buy another Kinkaid picture from Princess Cruises on our next trip. The bottom line is that you have to love the picture if your going to buy.