Tydirium's WIP Collection Project

[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.

[CorranHorn]

Tydirium,

I'm glad to see my chronicle has been of some inspiration to you in prepping your collection room. You've certainly put a lot of thought into the project, I suspect in the end you will have put more thought into it than I have with mine.

The museum-esque quality will as you mention, be the hard part. I've done my best to display things in a way that just doesn't seem to be thrown together, but in many cases it's too difficult. I think I've only truly succeeded with my ships and my Jedi Luke focus.

Those t-arm stands sounds very intriguing, the problem for me at least comes to the cost. I'm trying to limit how much money I throw into my collection room, something that may come to bite me in the ass if I can't throw enough cash together to get the glass cases I want for my vintage. But the stands do seem like a good fit, have you had any stability issues?

As time goes on I hope to see more of what you have come up with, so far it's been quite insightful.

Cheers!

[jokabofe]

jason, what kind of cases are you thinking about getting for your vintage collection (shouldn't this be back in your thread   )? i went a little on the cheap side, because i needed to get so many cases for my loose collection (both vintage and modern). i ended up buying 13 of these cases from ikea. they are made of wood, but have sliding glass doors on them, to hopefully keep out a lot of the dust. i wanted something with a little more glass to them, like glass on all sides, maybe with a mirrored back as well, but in the end i opted for these.

[JediMAC]

Hey now, don't forget to mention your collaborative planning buddy here, lest folks think I copied your ass years down the road when I finally put my collection room together!  

The killer is those $800 Curio cabinets though...    I definitely dig how those ship "stands" turned out.  I'll have to check 'em out in person next time I'm over to see just how they work.  Looks like good stuff though, and should definitely help stagger the ship display a bit.  Cool find.

Now how's the progress coming on the tiered acrylic stands though?  That's where it's at!  But you're definitely off to a good start J.  Keep it up bud!  

[SilverZ]

Yeah, the T-arms might end up being a bit pricey and there's one problem I've already noticed with the TIE, which I have sitting on my desk atm - it's a bit wobbly. Apparently the metal is designed to be cut to size, so I could lop off an inch of the post and see if it adds some rigidity. I'll probably wait until I have a few more before I try, though.

Oh dear Matt, you’ve just admitted that we’ve been furniture shopping together.   Ahem. Those curio cases are the killer. And how many did you and I look at? There’s still not a single one that jumps out at me as perfect. Most seemed to have 14” depth, right? I’m thinking something deeper may be needed. Also, I definitely want high visibility and that means, I think, that I have to go with a more industrial store-display style cabinet, or really dig deep into the curio research.

Here’s a few that I bookmarked. I like one on a certain day, another on the next, then hate them all shortly after. (Or am terrified by the cost).


Too much metal.


Too thin.


Too expensive, too small.


Kinda neat, but not big enough.


This would be ideal if the room was big enough. How cool would it be to walk all the way around the ship display?

I’m not too worried about the acrylic stands for the figures, honestly. It seems like a simple custom job for any of those acrylic designers to handle. We’re only talking about a longer version of a riser that most already make unless a tier shelf is added (I can’t remember what we talked about being the ideal way last). At the moment, I’m of the mindset of simply doing a row of figures on the glass shelf, then a second row in the background on a riser that runs the width of the shelf. Keep it really open, with about ½-3/4” space between figures. I think it’s going to have to wait until after those cases are decided on.

Thanks for all the encouragement guys!

[CorranHorn]

Yeah the problem with those cases for me at least is the price, something like that would be too expensive for me. Though they certainly look great, I think the last one looks perfect, but the 2nd one looks nice too, can't tell why you said it was too thin. Did you mean the glass in general?

The kind of case I'm interested in is at all places WalMart. It's a cherry wood design, similar to the cases I have now, but it has a door with a big glass window in it. Goes for about $80 or so and might do the trick. Don't wanna steal the thread away from Tydirium, but to reply to Dave, those small cabinets you linked from Ikea actually look really cool for figures and mini-rigs, I may look into them if the big glass cases don't work out for me.