Park West Art Auctions are Back on HAL......

[edmusic]

Never really paid much attention to the art auctions in the past... DW and I are not artsy people...... but what is all of the hoopla about? obviously they were selling junk, forgery's?.. which I am not surprised..... they just seemed to take up space to me...

They're not selling forgery's, they're just not selling anything that has any real value. Here's what the hoopla is: They bring a bunch of worthless paintings onboard and then 'auction' them off. Here's how the auction works - if you are interested in a painting, you place your bid on it which is a price that is preset by the auction company. They then bring the item up for others to bid on. If no one else bids on it, you have to buy it. From the auctions I've seen, NO ONE else ever bids on them so you are basically 'buying' non-valuable art at a price that is already predetermined and most likely inflated. The only items ever offered for the 'auction' part of it are the items that people have bid on. There are no paintings that start at a low price and multiple people actually bid on.

 

In my opinion, art auctions on cruise ships are both a scam and a rip-off at the same time.

[WriterOnDeck]

Thank goodness they were not on our 45-day Maasdam cruise that just ended -- many people commented about how nice it was to avoid the whole brouhaha.