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My degrees are sitting in a drawer; why the hell won't the universities sell matting?

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  • Sep 14th, 2020 10:13 am
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Dec 28, 2005
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My degrees are sitting in a drawer; why the hell won't the universities sell matting?

A mild rant that I needed to get off my chest. I am on staycation thanks to COVID-19 and doing a bit of tidying up at home. One of the things that has always irked me is that my wife and I still haven't framed and hung our degrees. The reason? We have degrees from multiple different universities and none of them use the same frames, nor do any of the Canadian universities sell the matting separately. Now I know what someone is going to say: "Just buy the frames and take out the matting". Sure, we could do that, but that just seems extraordinarily wasteful. We would be spending over $600 (6 degrees between us) just to throw away the frames. I know these are easy money for the universities, but multiple degrees and/or certificates isn't exactly uncommon these days. Just sell the bloody matting! /rant
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Dec 11, 2003
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But it's all about the money. Each school wants you to pay them for the frames and stuff.
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Jun 12, 2008
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Is it the embossed logo that you want? Or just matching mats? If its just matching matting you can find a framing store and get matching frames and mats. Or buy the school one and resell the frame.

When my spouse and I got our degrees/diplomas we bought the school mat and frame. We attended different schools so now we have changed to matching frames and mats and sold the school logo ones. The red, purple, blue and green didn't go together when hung on the same wall.
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May 14, 2009
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I got mine custom matted/framed at Michael’s and while I don’t remember the cost, I wouldn’t have gotten them done if it wasn’t reasonable. They have sales often.
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Dec 28, 2005
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zeddy wrote: Is it the embossed logo that you want? Or just matching mats? If its just matching matting you can find a framing store and get matching frames and mats. Or buy the school one and resell the frame.

When my spouse and I got our degrees/diplomas we bought the school mat and frame. We attended different schools so now we have changed to matching frames and mats and sold the school logo ones. The red, purple, blue and green didn't go together when hung on the same wall.
Touche. We were going to go with the university matting with the logos, but you raise a good point that it would be a bit of a rainbow. Only three of the degrees would match if we did that. I guess it's time to shop around for a framing place that uses archival paper and UV sealed glass.
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amz155 wrote: I got mine custom matted/framed at Michael’s and while I don’t remember the cost, I wouldn’t have gotten them done if it wasn’t reasonable. They have sales often.
Do they use archival paper and UV glass?
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Dec 28, 2005
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Kiraly wrote: Obvious solution: Take the diplomas without buying their overpriced frame, and take them down to a local picture frame shop.
How is that a solution? My original goal was to have the university-specific embossed matting in each frame.
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Feb 16, 2013
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That's rough OP. Six degrees and no frames.
Why are people down voting?
....
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Feb 9, 2006
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Brampton
cowbunpants wrote: That's rough OP. Six degrees and no frames.
Why are people down voting?
Book smart enough for 6 degrees but couldn't problem solve in real-life?
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Dec 28, 2005
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tebore wrote: Book smart enough for 6 degrees but couldn't problem solve in real-life?
I'm listening. What's the solution? How am I going to get the university-specific embossed matting without buying the frames and matting combined? I've checked with the universities. They will not sell it. I've checked Kijiji, nadda. I've checked with independent print shops. They either: won't replicate it or cannot guarantee the same quality. Do tell. I'm all ears.
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Mar 21, 2010
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unshavenyak wrote: I know these are easy money for the universities, but multiple degrees and/or certificates isn't exactly uncommon these days. Just sell the bloody matting! /rant
That's probably part of the reason. Most degrees and certificates are undergraduate/college and those are ten-a-penny, so a lot of people don't frame or display them. I imagine you probably have Masters/Doctorates that are far beyond the run-of-the-mill, but that's a specialist market (so they probably assume $600 is a drop in the ocean and charge as much for the paraphernalia as they can). I couldn't tell you where my undergraduate degree is, it's a piece of paper I got so I could sit inside and do a job rather than stand outside and do a job, basically.
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Manatus wrote: That's probably part of the reason. Most degrees and certificates are undergraduate/college and those are ten-a-penny, so a lot of people don't frame or display them. I imagine you probably have Masters/Doctorates that are far beyond the run-of-the-mill, but that's a specialist market (so they probably assume $600 is a drop in the ocean and charge as much for the paraphernalia as they can). I couldn't tell you where my undergraduate degree is, it's a piece of paper I got so I could sit inside and do a job rather than stand outside and do a job, basically.
To clarify, it's 6 degrees between my wife and I: 2 undergradatues, 2 Masters and 1 Doctorate. The issue we have is that we went to different schools for our undergraduate, my 2nd Masters and her PhD. Oh well, first world problems. We wanted the embossed matting with matching frames, but zeddy pointed out that the matting won't match, so might a well just go with plain jane white.
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Feb 4, 2010
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unshavenyak wrote: I'm listening. What's the solution? How am I going to get the university-specific embossed matting without buying the frames and matting combined? I've checked with the universities. They will not sell it. I've checked Kijiji, nadda. I've checked with independent print shops. They either: won't replicate it or cannot guarantee the same quality. Do tell. I'm all ears.
Just so I understand, your options are to buy "university-specific embossed matting" with the frame from the university (more expensive) or go out and buy your own matting and framing (cheaper). You're not happy with either option because you want to buy just the "university-specific embossed matting". Why exactly do you need to "university-specific embossed matting" - what does that get you that regular matting doesn't? Honestly, just sound like a non-problem that you have created for yourself and getting worked up over especially since you've had the degrees sitting unhung for years. First-world problems at its finest lol.
unshavenyak wrote: Do they use archival paper and UV glass?
Epitome of pretentiousness.
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hierophant wrote: Just so I understand, your options are to buy "university-specific embossed matting" with the frame from the university (more expensive) or go out and buy your own matting and framing (cheaper). You're not happy with either option because you want to buy just the "university-specific embossed matting". Why exactly do you need to "university-specific embossed matting" - what does that get you that regular matting doesn't? Honestly, just sound like a non-problem that you have created for yourself and getting worked up over especially since you've had the degrees sitting unhung for years. First-world problems at its finest lol.



Epitome of pretentiousness.
It's not about need, it's want. Aesthetics, my man. It's an annoying problem created by the universities and their insistence on squeezing out as much profit as possible.
hierophant wrote: Epitome of pretentiousness.
I don't think you understand that word. It's not pretentious or unreasonable to be able to want to purchase the matting so that your frames can match. Nor is it pretentious for asking what type of paper and glass they use (presumably you don't want to ensure they are protected if the degrees are important to you?). Pretentious would be asserting that you were some sort of philistine for not understanding why we would want the frames to match.
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Feb 4, 2010
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unshavenyak wrote: It's not about need, it's want. Aesthetics, my man. It's an annoying problem created by the universities and their insistence on squeezing out as much profit as possible.



I don't think you understand that word. It's not pretentious or unreasonable to be able to want to purchase the matting so that your frames can match. Pretentious would be asserting that you were some sort of philistine for not understanding why we would want the frames to match.
Thank you for illustrating your pretentiousness even further lol . BTW did you see what text I quoted in reference to my comment?
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Dec 28, 2005
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hierophant wrote: Thank you for illustrating your pretentiousness even further lol . BTW did you see what text I quoted in reference to my comment?
I didn't assert you were philistine. I gave an example of what being pretentious would look like. :facepalm:
Deal Fanatic
Feb 4, 2010
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unshavenyak wrote: I didn't assert you were philistine. I gave an example of what being pretentious would look like. :facepalm:
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