For many years, IKEA’s Ribba frames have been the dirty little secret of artists, collectors, and decorators. Modern gallery frames can be expensive, but with Ribba, you could easily toss up as much art as you liked as often as you liked. And, unlike many inexpensive art store and big box frames, Ribba’s affordability didn’t mean it was going to immediately eat your artwork or encourage bad mounting practices: every frame includes a precut, acid-free mat with totally reasonable margins.

Buuut nothing can stay perfect forever, and Ribba fell victim to IKEA’s safety PR blitz and increasing shipping costs.

From its inception, Ribba had shipped with good-quality glass glazing. During 2018, IKEA phased in a new, polystyrene glazing that has the benefit of not being a weight hazard and not being breakable, but it comes with one major flaw: it’s only slightly more durable than room-temperature butter.

You may be thinking “oh, I’ve had old-school acrylic glazing before, I know how to be gentle.” If only that were the case.

If you dust your artwork, no matter how carefully, no matter if you use a fancypants no-scratch carbon duster, you will scratch the polystyrene glazing. The scratches will be visible, and they will get worse over time.

It’s not all bad news, though: IKEA hasn’t changed the dimensions of the Ribba frame at all, so it’s still a good cheap frame into which you can insert your own glazing and artwork (including better-quality styrene glazing, if you so desire).