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Tydirium's WIP Collection Project

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SilverZ:
I’ve been prepping my collection for a revived display soon and decided I’d start logging some of the steps and research I’ve been doing here at JD. CorranHorn's cool thread inspired me to share my endeavor.

My collection of Star Wars items is primarily modern-era 3 ¾” Kenner/Hasbro offerings. I prefer loose, but also maintain a carded/boxed collection as well. My loose collection is complete and the boxed collection is missing a few early POTF2 vehicles.  I also have most of the Marmit and Kotobukiya figures, a collection of posters ranging from 2-sided theatrical releases, UK subway posters, various Art of Star Wars posters from the US and UK, and PT banners. I also have an upright Atari Star Wars machine that’s in limbo at a place in Culver City. Once I get a chance I plan on diving back into vintage Kenner stuff.

Like most others, I’ve found attempting to display a complete collection of carded and loose modern figures a space-consuming task. Since I’ve moved three times in the last two years, the practicality of assembling, disassembling, and reassembling the collection has daunted me into putting most of it into storage until I find an apartment or house that I’ll be comfortable in for the long-term (and also has a large enough room to house the collection).

Stepping away from the collection for a while has given me some clarity about what I actually want out of my “Star Wars Room” once it returns. Here are my goals:

- The entire display esthetic must be elevated above the “room of toys” feel – it has to have a classy, almost museum display quality to it.

- Emphasis will be on loose items with modest use of carded/boxed items to punctuate certain eras/line changes.

- Display must be behind glass using consistent furniture color and style with high-visibility (all glass, preferably).

The second and third objectives are easy enough to follow. Nailing the first objective is the challenge – how do you present a bunch of plastic toys in a reverent way that even non-collectors can look at and understand the importance of the line to you, personally?

I’ll be trying to answer that from several different approaches, and each answer will be different for each section of the line. Since I don’t have an actual room to work in right now, I can only prep components for eventual, well, implementation.

Carded Figures

Since the emphasis is on the loose collection, the carded and boxed collection is going to stay, by and large, out of sight. Only select carded figures will be used. Which ones? Ideally, one of each modern cardback will be used, which when you count them up to today, is around 22 – too many for my eventual display. A realistic number is probably closer to 6-8. That can be determined later, but what I am working on now, and believe I have my answer, is how to properly display these “showpieces”.

I am using AFA-graded figures in their sealed acrylic cases, mounted on an acrylic base easel. I documented this process in a thread here.



Over the next few months I plan to do this to TF Vader, Sacul, one OTC figure, one POTF2 orange card figure, and a couple others that are to be determined.

The stand is from Aaron Brothers.

I’m happy with the results of this process for select figures. I believe it elevates their presentation to the “museum” feel I am shooting for.

Loose Vehicles – Small to Mid scale

With the idea of using an all-glass display case to feature the loose collection, and considering the amount of vehicles that should be presented, there are a few challenges that need to be solved to maintain the “museum” feel. To me, lining them up on a single row, repeated on and on, won’t work from a space-usage standpoint nor an esthetic presentation perspective.

My idea to solve this is to present vehicles using foreground and background heights. Some vehicles will be sitting directly on the glass shelf with landing gears down. Others will be placed on square acrylic risers on the background row.

Still others will be displayed “in-flight” – which I think is a necessity for several of the vehicles that don’t have proper gear-down modes, like the Naboo Starfighter, any of the TIE vehicles, or the Pod Racers. This may also be my solution for vehicles with repaint variants, like the A-wing and the upcoming Y-wing, where I will display one gear-down and one in-flight.

I found an art display armature at an online shop recently and ordered one to test. The basic construction is a clear acrylic base with a single black metal rod inserted into it, with two flexible metal bars making a “T” section at the top of the rod. You bend the rods as you need to fit what you are mounting. It arrived today and I tested it out with two different ships:



I’m really happy with how it worked! This is a pretty close approximation of how the ILM TIE models are displayed at various venues. Again, this is a step in realizing the elevated presentation level I’m shooting for.

Next Steps

That’s all the tinkering I’ve done up till now. I’m months away from moving again, so in the meantime I’ll be continuing my search for display cases, forming a presentation strategy for the loose figures, and testing out these display armatures on larger ships (which I think will need two supports). I’d like to display Slave 1 in flight mode.

Any comments on the project would be appreciated!

Jared

Materials Links
Acrylic T-Arm stands from Art Display Essentials
Novus scratch remover from MisterPlexi
Carded figures graded at AFA

SilverZ:
Also in the process of getting ships ready for display, I've found this to be great for removing any blemishes, scratches, or other unwanted marks on vehicles:



It's restored many a clear cockpit cover to perfect condition.

jokabofe:
sounds like you have a very well thought out plan of attack for your collection room jared. since i am in the process of doing this myself (although i started before jason's brilliant idea of documenting it from start to finish, so i'll just take some "after" photos, uhmmm.... after) i know how important a well thought out plan can be. and i know this why? because i don't have one. and it sucks.

i really, really, really should have put more thought into this whole idea before i started. what should have been a weekend project, or at most two weekends, has now expanded into over a month long ordeal of fighting with my room. thinking things will fit in certain places, only to find out that they don't.

those stands for your ships are very cool looking. where did you find them, and how much did they cost if you don't mind me asking. after several failed ideas on how to display my various vehicles, i ended up with the old standard 12 year old bedroom look - hanging them from the ceiling.  ::)

but those stands are quite nice, and i might look into changing my display around if i can get enough of them at a decent price.

thanks for sharing, and i can't wait to see (and hear) more of your collection plans.

SilverZ:
Thanks for the comments Dave - I have an idea in my head of what it looks like, but it's just trial and error finding all the items to actually make it happen. It took not having the collection around to really help visualize what I wanted. All my previous attempts were done just trying to fit everything into the room ATF. I've thrown away many different shelving systems over the years.  :-\

I'll start a little links section in the 1st post for all my materials. I paid 11.00 for the stand. They have some other stuff I'm going to try, including an ornament stand that's a base with a curved support that you can hang things from. I'm going to try putting the Ewok Glider on it.

jokabofe:
cool, thanks for the link jared. i might have to invest in a few of those. not really sure where i would put them after i put them on the stands tho, since wall/shelf space is definitely at a premium in my apartment right now. so hanging from the ceiling they stay at the moment.

i actually have a few of those types of ornament hangers, and they are actually holding some ornaments that i picked up over the years at places like the disney store and the warner bros. stores. they work well, and that would probably do nicely for the ewok, as well as (maybe) speeder bikes. not sure how exactly you would attach the ewok to that stand, but i'm sure you'll figure something out.

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