Not another Cruise Ship Art Auction Artilce

At the end of July Law.com ran a Daily Business Review article on Cruise Ship art sales. The article of course mentioned the primary player in Cruise Ship art, Park West Gallery, and discusses the possibility of a class action law suite against Park West.

Much of the information in the article is not new for many appraisers, but it is interesting that Park West continues to profit from these sales while using inadequate appraisals as sales tools, along with much confusing contractual fine print.

Everyone knows "let the buyer beware", but these sales have been going on for a long time and "collectors" are still being victimized and taken advantage of. More needs to be done, the Cruise Ship lines need to protect their clients, and Park West needs to disclose what the terms are at the time of the auction, the auction/sales representatives need to be held accountable for their public statements and the Cruise Ship art auction industry needs to stop hiding behind contractual fine print. The problem in correcting is of course the amount of money being made by the cruise ship auction galleries and the cruise ship lines. Park West and the Cruise Lines don't want to fix the problem since it has been a very lucrative partnership, or they already would have corrected the concerns.

To read the full article click HERE.