Displaying my collection

One of the many challenges of collecting is how to store and display it. Everyone who collects wants to be able to display their collection, either to share their joy of collecting with others, or to quietly contemplate and admire their collection for themselves.

I do admit to spending a bit of time arranging my displays at home. It's quite a challenge as space is very limited and so is my budget, so I have to find creative ways to ensure items in my collection are displayed in an attractive and dignified manner. Unfortunately because of a lack of space the most valuable items in my collection reside at the bank, but for what I do have at home I use a variety of cabinets, frames and stands to house the displays and often include other items of a related nature to enliven things or to give some context. At the moment I don't use any labels because the displays are primarily for me (we don't have many visitors), and I'm constantly changing the displays so having to come up with new labels would be too much of an inconvenience.

How do you display your collection? Do you have lots of space or are your displays subject to the same space and cost limitations as mine?

I wish I had a barn to keep everything in...but I'm sure that as soon as I find some space I'll find a way to fill it!

Now, on to the displays.

These are some items from my Royal Australian Navy collection. It includes medals from World War Two up until the present day. I purchased a Royal Australian Navy desk flag from the Australian National Maritime Museum to include in the display, and the badge under the flag is the Sea Readiness Badge I wore during my brief time in the RAN.

Here are the lower shelves of the same display cabinet in which the RAN display resides. The second shelf houses some items from my Nepalese collection hence the Nepalese flag. The large group rests on a display stand purchased at a local military outfitter (Glendinning's) but I understand they are now readily available at more military outfitters and militaria shops. They're quite useful and add a nice vertical aspect to the display.

Below the Nepal collection is a small selection of orders and medals from Communist regimes including those in Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Cuba, Tajikistan and the USSR. I recently purchased an Order of the October Revolution (my favourite Soviet order) which will be included in the display when it arrives. The two model cars are 1:43 scale models of Zil limousines, used by Soviet leaders as their conveyance of choice.

The bottom shelf is my small collection of Communist China medals. You can't really see it in the photo but the backdrop to the display is a small wooden screen with images of Chinese Marshals which I bought in Beijing. Again I've included a 1:43 model limousine, this time a Hong Qi (Red Flag) limousine as used by top Chinese officials.

The display cabinet itself is from Ikea and is readily available. The cost for me in Australia was about $150 and I have two. I hope to buy another couple more soon for displaying other collections (models, headgear, etc, etc).

Lighting is provided using an Ikea downlight, again readily available and inexpensive. It plugs directly into the mains and adds quite a nice atmosphere to the room when all other lights are off.

This is a shadow-box display I made myself. The frame was bought from a charity shop for $10, but I believe is also sold new from Ikea for not much more than that. I put some sticky-backed felt on some cardboard, draped the ribbons over the top and then used double-sided tape to stick to a larger piece of card, also covered in sticky-backed felt. The effect is quite nice if you ignore my shonky mounting. One day I'll get it straight and even.

The Thai orders here are displayed in another Ikea shadow box and mounted using the same method as the medals above (ie with sticky-backed felt). With the breast stars, I used polystyrene to put the large pins through as card wasn't sufficiently robust. The frame above was again bought from a charity shop ($4) but is an Ikea product (and no, Ikea is not paying me for this post...but it would be nice!). The documents are award certificates in Thai and English for the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Crown of Thailand, awarded to Maurice Couve de Murville, French Foreign Minister who later became Prime Minister of France. The insignia itself is in storage as I'm trying to find a way to display it beside the certificates. The documents are very interesting as the Thai version is signed by the King of Thailand and counter-signed by the President of the Council of Ministers, a Field Marshal. Aside from this, they are also very attractively presented with a gilt rendition of the badge of the Order at the top.

The two frames can be hung on the wall, but lack of wall space (and the fact that I'm renting) means that I've simply placed them on an old easel which actually turned out quite nice.

So these are a few ideas I've developed over the years and still working on. I hope this provides some guidance or ideas for your own display, but if not I hope it at least sparked some interest. Please let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions you'd like to share, especially if you live in a shoebox like me!