Rich,

For several years, now, I have been checking all the pieces when they come in [anywhere from four to eight per piece] for my dealer. My dealer relies on me to spot the problems, and I am the first one to open the boxes. The instances which I discussed, above, were all clearly flaws and damage that occurred before the pieces ever left the factory. It's not hard to tell when a piece that has been chipped or incompletely poured has been nevertheless painted and sent out the door, or when the ramming in of excessive foam packing has pushed, bent, and broken the more fragile parts of the pieces. One of the worst cases of the latter problem was Whitefish Point, whose tower was damaged and the paint was cracked by the wads of nearly inextricable foam in six of the eight pieces that my dealer received. [I'm surgically careful when I remove the foam!] Another clue is the tiny breakages that are evident deep in the foliage of trees and bushes, where the foam has been stuffed into them. There is a difference between the white spots that have been overlooked during the painting process and the crisp, clean demarcation of cracked paint around a break.

Thus, I have the good fortune of being able to avoid the factory-generated flaws for most of the pieces. It's those special, various "event" pieces that must be mail ordered that are becoming more and more a problem. In the El Moro pieces that I received, it is crystal clear that the chipping occurred before the paint was ever applied. I have even noted when the painter has literally tried to fill in chips with globs of paint. Also, I doubt that a dealer like Lighthouse Depot, who handles a volume of orders, is going to check the pieces.

Again, from the way that I have seen most people, including the dealers and the Youngers, handle the pieces, I couldn't be assured that the damage did not happen at that point. When I received the "Hatteras-On-The-Move" piece, it was clear that the metal sign had been bent over at a right angle when the piece was flipped over and signed. I have witnessed all of the Youngers sign the pieces on various occasions, and as much as I love them, I don't want them to handle mine! They clearly assume that the sculptures are far more resilient than they are. This is why I specifically request all my pieces to be unsigned. It was no small miracle, several years ago, that my Point Arena piece survived the dealer's picking it up by the tower, like a Halloween noise maker, and plopping it into the bag and box.

When one pays anywhere from $55 to $100+ for a piece, one has perfectly reasonable expectations in anticipating its being in mint [essentially flawless] condition. I started collecting in 1995, and I have noted that condition issues are becoming more and more a problem.