Hello All! I was hoping that I could post a dilemma that I've been thinking about for quite some time and decided that I should ask you all for suggestions. So here is my situation with my collection: It finally outgrew my room and got moved out to another room in my house this summer (I have not counted them recently, though I'm sure I am over 2,000 models so they take up a lot of space). Nearly my entire collection is housed on bookshelves that have been repurposed and had extra shelves made for them. As many of you can probably tell from my additions thread, I collect all brands and all qualities of models so I have a collection that is difficult to display and needs to be renovated and rearranged since I moved it, and space is an issue since I still live at home and my parents don't want their house run over with plastic figures.
So I have a few questions to ask and I hope you all can share some suggestions or tips, I'd really appreciate any feedback.
1) Organization/categorization: I have my main collection (the bookshelves) categorized into continent and type of animals. I.e. Africa, asia, south America, etc. etc. and then the farm life and horses and pets. However, the lines bleed a little because originally I had so many specific types of models like rodents and birds that when it was in my room I HAD to make more room on the bookshelves so I hastily made smaller wall shelves to put those on and free up space for larger models. Now, I have a few of the smaller wall shelves with rodents and frogs etc. in my room still that I want to put with the main collection, and I also have book shelves that house my birds from the world; aka I have sub categories I'm not sure I totally like. This leads to groups of animals being split up (i.e. the rodents are missing from my North America display) and situations like my Australia shelf has everything from Australia in it, a lot of it birds (aka 90% of my birds are all together, then the Australian ones are separate). So how do you guys solve this issue?
2) Mini series/collections: I have been taking smaller models from other series and incorporating them to the appropriate shelf (i.e. my yowies numbat is on its Australia shelf since I have no other numbats). But then some series like my safari ltd. whales and dolphins toob is on a small wall shelf with my PV whales and dolphins etc. or I have random smaller versions of things incorporated into the main collection like mini gorillas that are hard to see next to the gigantic AAA Kong. So do you put all your collection with the appropriate category on the shelf? or do you take special series and put them together? (I could put PV and K&M smaller figures together, and yowies US series 1, 2 and almost all of 3 together. But then I sacrifice not having unusual species in the main categorical shelf like with the numbat example? Am I overthinking this?)
3)Creative use of space: I was toying with the idea of suspending certain models in the "dead space" between the shelf above and where most models sit on their shelf. I.e. if I decide to keep all the birds together, I'd like to take small hooks and fishing line and suspend the birds that appear to be flying up above the rest so that I can save space from their spread wings as well as make the display more intriguing to look at. This is something I am also considering for sea life (whales and sharks) since they are notoriously hard to display and have them look decent. Any opinions on that? Any other ideas how to do it? How do you arrange your shelves; to look clean, to look natural with scenery related items, and how do you manage your space?
I'm really sorry if this is jumbled or confusing (I will try to clarify as I get feedback) and its late here now. However, I was hoping to deep clean my shelves and rearrange them around Christmas when I have the time so I was hoping for input from members here so I could get my collection together again. If you have photos of your own collection or ideas I'd love it if you'd share them; just keep in mind I am also a poor college student so I can't afford the nicer things in life like vitrines (though I'd love to one day). Again, I appreciate any and all help and maybe this topic can help others who are struggling with display issues as well and get a creative discussion going.
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-"I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven’t got the guts to bite people themselves."-August Strindberg (However, anyone who knows me knows I love dogs
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-“We can try to kill all that is native, string it up by its hind legs for all to see, but spirit howls and wildness endures.”-Anonymous