Shipping works of art and antiques in a custom-built wooden crate is the safest way to transport fragile and valuable items nowadays. Apparently, crating services are more expensive than softpacking ones due to the difference in materials, skills, and time needed for the construction. That’s why some people may wonder whether using art shipping crates is a boon or a bane. Let’s analyze how effective they may be for you in different situations and try to reach a successful verdict.
Using Art Shipping Crates: A Boon or a Bane?
First things first, there are cases when art shipping crates are required – as simple as that. When it comes to international shipping, large-scale canvases, or odd-shaped sculptures, art handlers don’t try fortune and use wooden containers to ensure the safety of transported objects during the whole trip to the destination. Any other options would be either irrelevant or dangerous, which might lead to devastating results.
The skepticism usually starts growing when the choice is between art shipping crates and corrugated boxes or other softpacking options. Indeed, why should you crate a canvas when you can just ship it in a cardboard box? It is a good question that can be answered by shippers and art owners alike.
Shippers–when also responsible for packing–don’t want to make the process even more complicated and make you spend more resources on crating. If you don’t think a crate is justifiable, you can tell it directly to the people you hired. As a rule, this sort of discussion happens at the initial stages of cooperation. Of course, if someone wants to make money off you, that’s a big bane of a company you work with, not a crate.
On another note, using art shipping crates can be a client’s initiative. People who highly value the paintings they want to move will do anything to protect them. At the end of the day, such containers are the most secure approach to artwork shipping, so such an initiative should always be welcome. The same goes for people’s desire not to put their precious belongings into a shipping box. Yes, it is much riskier, but people voluntarily take it.
All in all, using a crate remains to be a real bane that you shouldn’t ignore. By adequately weighing the pros and cons of investing in custom-built containers, you can easily explain their disadvantages. And if you have some doubts about your choice, you can always contact Fine Art Shippers to resolve the uncertainty.