Adult collector conundrum 1: I love the things that I collect, I’ve got limited space to display them as it is and know I’ll want to get more in the future.
Adult collector conundrum 2: If I cram loads into my display case I can proudly display my collection, but none of them really stand out because there are so many in there.
These are the thoughts I had when I looked at my Transformers display recently. In particular my G1 toys bothered me, because they are in general smaller than the Masterpiece toys, they leave a lot of wasted space above them when they are in a display case…
I can’t fit extra shelves into the display case, but there must be some sort of display stand I could use to create some artificial shelf type effect. I went shopping on Amazon, knowing that I wanted to find something that was transparent so that toys would always be visible from all angles. I had seen transparent acrylic tables before and I wondered if something similar could be used to create an extra shelf within a shelf so that toys could be displayed on two levels within a single shelf space.
I ended up buying two items which I thought would be useful, an extra-large presentation bridge, and a three tier acrylic display stand.
They both had protective films which needed to be removed, and once they were taken off, both were wonderfully clear and scratch free. Both items were bought from different companies, but there were no apparent quality differences between the two.
I found the presentation bridge to be the most versatile of the two, despite being the simplest design. I had intended it to put my G1 and G2 Optimus Prime’s above and below it to save space where they were initially displayed side by side, but I did measure up and some Autobot Masterpiece cars in robot mode (I used Bluestreak with shoulder cannons attached) will fit under the stand too and could make for some impressive display scenes if you’re that way inclined.
The 3 tier stand was useful too, but didn’t give the same feeling of creating extra space that the presentation bridge did. It allowed me to put lots of figures in once place, and I can imagine that if you wanted to create any kind of scenes with your figures it would be useful for that, but I ended up going for a minimalist approach as I feel the figures looked a bit better when they were a little more spread out.
All in all I recommend both, if I was going to buy more though, I’d be more likely to go for more bridge style stands as I feel that they do a great job of allowing me to display more and create extra space within a cabinet. Although I purchased my stands through Amazon, there are companies out there who you can buy directly from that make similar items at very reasonable costs, so you have plenty of options if you are planning on making a similar purchase.
We all face similar conundrums as collectors, how best to maximise the space we have so we can enjoy our collections without them taking over the whole house? Have you come up with any unique space saving ways of displaying your collection? If so, please comment on this article with your solutions so the whole community can share and benefit.
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