Keshi and Hello from Zuni Spirits!
I'm posting 17 new Zuni fetish carvings to the site on Wednesday, August 29th at noon, central time. There are carvings from Herbert Him, Lena Boone, Clissa Martin, Claudia Peina, Faye Quandelacy, Stewart Quandelacy, Leland Boone and others. There will even be a surprise addition; a little eye candy for you serious collectors.
The USPS has made our shipping a little more complicated with regional pricing. We continue to seek out the most inexpensive, yet reliable, options for the transport of your precious carvings. While we continue to believe that is via USPS, if prices continue to rise, we may utilize other options in the future.
Did you know that the best way to see the most current version of Zunispirits.com is to always enter via this link:
Zunispirits.com. If you seek out listings via Google or some other search engine, the page you are directed to may, in fact, be years old and no longer actually on our server. Recently a collector wrote saying she found a page published in 2008 .. and none of the links worked. She wondered if we were still in business. ALWAYS enter our site via our home page so you'll be sure to see the most up-to-date inventory selection.
A self-proclaimed "new" collector from overseas recently questioned the price of a carving on our site when she compared it with a carving by the same artist that she'd found on ebay. While we applaud any of the carvers who represent themselves via ebay or their own websites, it should be fairly obvious that we can't compete with them, nor do we wish to! Additionally, that particular artisan offers his ebay customers a lower starting price in hopes there will be some competition between bidders that will raise the ending price to a more realistic retail price. It's a gamble he is willing to take.
The collector, being uneducated, didn't take into account the size of the carving on ebay versus the larger carving on our site. Additionally, she didn't understand that the carving on ebay was made from a "found" stone, while the carving on our site was made of a stone the artist had to purchase as raw material. We continue to offer quality Zuni fetishes at fair prices. To us, that means a fair price to our artisans .. and a fair price to you, the collector. We've witnessed far too many carvers being short changed in Zuni and it just doesn't set well with us.
Sometimes a little knowledge is dangerous. This novice collector also accused us of misrepresenting this artisan's work as his father's (we didn't), accused us of saying the carver was deceased (we didn't) and she accused us of removing the textual description from the page in an effort to disguise our deception (nope, we didn't). In truth, the carver's father does carve, but he has a different name. The artist has son with the same name, so that might have fueled her incorrect assumption. And the reason the page didn't have a textual description is because when the carving was posted last year, Darlene was just too ill with cancer treatment to do more than just the basic information. Since that time, either she or I have resumed our wordy descriptions for all items on our site.
Those of you who have been collectors and worked with us over the last dozen years know that we strive for excellence and integrity in all our actions. Had this new collector asked us about the discrepancies she didn't understand, we would have happily addressed her concerns. Instead, she was accusatory and rude. Fortunately, a little criticism from someone who has never dealt with us doesn't really hold much water. And while we recognize there may be some traders who might utilize such deceptive practices .. they won't be in business long. It's good to know who you are buying from AND to ask questions when you have any concerns about the authenticity of a gallery's inventory.
Enjoy the last days of summer! Though we don't anticipate being impacted much by Hurricane Isaac, any delays in posting tomorrow will be due entirely to his unexpected visitation.
All best wishes,
Dave
david@zunispirits.com
Zuni Spirits
Posts
