Question What the heck is Museum Grade Acrylic?

Larry Peterson

SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God
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Stumbling around looking at competitors on Etsy, I found this in a listing:

INCLUDES GLASS OR MUSEUM GRADE ACRYLIC (YOUR CHOICE)

There is no way that they are selling actual Museum Acrylic for the same price as glass. They sell some of the same frames as I so I know what their costs are and including actual Museum Acrylic isn't possible. It would cost more than what the frames costs .

So what is it? I Googled around and found some sites like this one ( http://mirageoutlet.com/ACRYLITE-PLEXIGLASS-Premium-Acrylic-Sheets.html ) calling FF3 Museum Grade. WTF!!!!!

I need to figure out how to address this. If I do nothing, the average customer will think that their "Museum Grade Acrylic" is better than mine but I can't consciously call FF3 Museum Grade.

I was thinking that I might put a disclaimer in my listings that says something like:

I use Premium Clear Picture Framing Acrylic. Some call this Museum Grade Acrylic, not to be confused with the extremely expensive the product named "Optimum Museum Acrylic".

I think they are misleading their customers. What do you think?
 
Don't confuse the Optium "Museum" acrylic trademark with marketing quality claims using the term "museum grade" which could even be based level of flaws.
Acrylite itself claims FF3 is "framing grade" and OP3 with its UV protection as "museum grade", nothing to do with the anti-reflective and scratch resistant qualities of Tru-Vue's product.. The marketing BS on that Etsy site is as you say, just that - marketing exaggeration.
 
"museum grade" is an adjective of a noun that has no predefined definition. It is advertising jargon with no meaning.

note that the linked website is describing the product with 2 brand names, one that is misspelled and did not that a ® mark. The proper generic term is acrylic sheet.
 
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It is advertising jargon with no meaning.

Larry's problem is that his customers don't see it as "advertising jargon with no meaning." They think Larry is selling an inferior product so will purchase the "advertising jargon" very close to false advertised product before they pick Larry product.

Larry it puts you in a bad spot but why can't you advertise the same way. If the vendor is selling the glass or acrylic as museum quality you should be able to advertise it the same way.
 
Larry it puts you in a bad spot but why can't you advertise the same way. If the vendor is selling the glass or acrylic as museum quality you should be able to advertise it the same way.

If I can't figure out another way, I may have to.
 
Here are two more misleading terms being used on inexpensive frames.

UV RESISTANT ACRYLIC
UV stabilized acrylic

I have no idea what either means.
 
Here are two more misleading terms being used on inexpensive frames.
UV RESISTANT ACRYLIC
UV stabilized acrylic
I have no idea what either means.

Hummmmmm...is it a secret new acrylic that is being produced and sold by a secret government company???

That is easy to advertise against - just advertise 99% UV block if you are using Tru-Vue's conservation products. Even the Premium Clear by Tru-Vue has 45% UV block so you can say the same things but prove it if you are using the premium clear and the premium clear acrylic by Tru-Vue blocks up to 66% of UV.
 
Larry, here's a photo from a sheet of Evonik Acrylite. I have another (newer?) sheet that just says 'framing grade'. Take it for what you will. I think they just mean it's not cheap styrene that will yellow or that has more defects in it.

acrylic.jpg
 
There is a similar problem with on line sellers (and some box stores) marketing paper mats as "Acid Free Mats".
 
Here are two more misleading terms being used on inexpensive frames.

UV RESISTANT ACRYLIC
UV stabilized acrylic

I have no idea what either means.

I believe that "UV stabilized acrylic" means that it has additives to slow down the degradation caused by UV, i.e. yellowing and brittleness.
 
"museum grade" is an adjective of a noun that has no predefined definition. It is advertising jargon with no meaning.

note that the linked website is describing the product with 2 brand names, one that is misspelled and did not that a ® mark. The proper generic term is acrylic sheet.
That's pretty much what I was going to say on the subject, it's been used in this case as a buzz word to sell the product.
 
That's a very good question and a question that needs to be addressed. For a the end of the day, when all is said
and done and when the cows have come home it is an important question that needs to be answered because it is
a question that it was important to ask.

What was the question again? o_O

'Museum Grade' in this case is a advertising buzz-word that has no real meaning.

I saw an advert for a Digital air-fryer the other day. :confused: Already had the Digital vacuum cleaner and Hi-Definition steam cleaner. :p
 
You already have lots of information on your site about the different types of acrylic that you offer, and how they differ, so I don't think you need to get as long-winded as in the proposed page in your link.
You might just add a highlighted note on your acrylic pages such as
PLEASE NOTE: Some vendors may use the misleading term "Museum Grade Acrylic" to describe what is actually equivalent to our "Framing Grade Acrylic". Do not confuse their product with the costly TruVue Optium Museum Acrylic. We offer several different top-quality Acrylic options, so you can choose the appearance and degree of protection you desire.

:cool: Rick
 
Thanks Rick. Shayla also PM'd me a bunch of typos and suggested corrections. I will get to them tomorrow or Friday and getting out a mess of frames.
 
That's a very good question and a question that needs to be addressed. For a the end of the day, when all is said
and done and when the cows have come home it is an important question that needs to be answered because it is
a question that it was important to ask.

What was the question again? o_O

The question was

Does this question need to be asked? And if it does, does it need to be answered? And if it does, at the end of the day when all is said and done and the cows have come home and gotten milked, who really, really wants to drink skim milk when 36% butterfat cream is on the table?
 
Thanks again to Shayla and Rick for even more corrections and suggestions.

You can see the updated page at https://www.thepaperframer.com/misleading.php

The casual reader might wonder why my spelling is so bad. It's because code editors don't have spell checkers (or so I thought, more later). Here on theG when I misspell something or my fingers go awry while typing, a squiggly red lines shows me I can't spell worth a hoot. I just right click on the word and possible corrections pop up. With code its not so simple.

Consider the code snippet below which is some actual code from the page I am working on. In my editor there is no spell check to show me whats wrong. On top of that, its hard to read which makes finding errors harder.

Code:
<div class="row-fluid clearfix">
  <div class="col-xs-1">
   &nbsp;
  </div>
  <div class="col-xs-8" align="center">
       <div class="banner888Small"><div class="banner888Smallcontent"><h4 style='margin:0;'>What is Museum Grade Acrylic</h4></div></div>
   <p>
       Before there was actual TruVue Optium Museum Acrylic, Evonik labeled its Acrylite acrylic sheet as "Framing And Museum Grade Sheet".
       So what is this?
       It is Framing Grade Acrylic.
   </p>
   <p>
       The first image on the right shows an older and obsolete Evonik label.
       The second image shows the current label.
       Museum Grade was deleted from the label and no longer used by Evonik.
   </p>
  </div>

  <div class="col-xs-3" align="center">
   <a href="/img/misleading1.jpg" rel="lightbox[change]" title="Change1"><img class="img-responsive" alt='' src="/img/misleading1.jpg" ></a>
   &nbsp;
   <a href="/img/misleading2.jpg" rel="lightbox[change]" title="Change1"><img class="img-responsive" alt='' src="/img/misleading2.jpg" ></a>
  </div>
</div>

So after round 3 of corrections, I wondered out loud (to my cats which just ignored me), why don't code editors have spell check? Granted it will be a lot harder to do since the spell checker will have to ignore all the programming jargon.

So I Google away and to my surprise, I found out that many code editors have spell check as an option. I use SlickEdit for my code editor, a very excellent editor and after some more Googling, I found out that my editor has it as an spell check option; a very well hidden option.

So I turned it on and low and behold, it found all the spelling errors in the last round from Shayla and Rick.

Now if it could only do something about my grammar. :(
 
The casual reader might wonder why my spelling is so bad. It's because code editors don't have spell checkers (or so I thought, more later). Here on theG when I misspell something or my fingers go awry while typing, a squiggly red lines shows me I can't spell worth a hoot. I just right click on the word and possible corrections pop up. With code its not so simple....

So I Google away and to my surprise, I found out that many code editors have spell check as an option. I use SlickEdit for my code editor, a very excellent editor and after some more Googling, I found out that my editor has it as an spell check option; a very well hidden option.

There is another option, that works on/in any program. It's free and called TinySpell. Our ERP doesn't have spell check, so this is a great asset for us. Like most relatively modern (like, in the last 20 years...), it also has user-dictionaries, so you can add weird "words" that are legitimate.
 
There is another option, that works on/in any program. It's free and called TinySpell. Our ERP doesn't have spell check, so this is a great asset for us. Like most relatively modern (like, in the last 20 years...), it also has user-dictionaries, so you can add weird "words" that are legitimate.

Cool. If I hadn't found the spell checker in SlickEdit, I would have tried it.
 
The problem with spellcheckers is they don't know every word. 'Proper' names like 'Obeche' provoke the squigglys.
As does squigglys apparently. It doesn't like squigglies also. :D

Certain other words are beyond it's lexicon. Hygroscopic o_O for one. Sometimes you want to deliberately miss-spell words.
I go on a FB page concerned with Lincolnshire dialect. People frequently write phonetically.
A common greeting in these parts might be: "Alrairt mairt?" (Are you well my friend). The spellchecker goes bananas. :eek:
Sometimes you get a translate option. Maybe it thinks it's Dutch or something.... :rolleyes:
 
The problem with spellcheckers is they don't know every word. 'Proper' names like 'Obeche' provoke the squigglys.
As does squigglys apparently. It doesn't like squigglies also. :D

Certain other words are beyond it's lexicon. Hygroscopic o_O for one.

Some spellcheckers have custom dictionaries available for certain industries, such as the medical field. All the ones I've ever used have the ability to add individual words to the dictionary so the squiggly lines go away. Generally this involves right-clicking the word and selecting "Add to dictionary".

MS Office applications have a small program where you can manually add words to a custom dictionary. You can also share, merge and/or move that custom dictionary. You can also have multiple custom dictionaries and enable or disable them depending on what kind of project you're working on. Probably more work than it's worth for most people.
 
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