easels

The basic question I’m currently putting to many customers:

I’m looking to put together a post sometime in the near future about how collectors are storing and/or displaying their collections. If you’d care to share, please feel free to reply with any info.

I sold this September 1950 issue of the American Magazine to Barb recently:

So, what does she do with it?

Well, it turns out Barb collects this specific title, the American, for specific content, Rex Stout stories. Stout is the author of the Nero Wolfe mysteries. But Barb isn’t just wrapping these up in bags and storing them away from prying eyes, no, she contributed this original idea for proudly displaying a collection in the home:

I keep them on top of six foot high bookcases – each one is on a short wooden easel for display purposes. I also include a piece of cardboard the size of the magazine before placing the magazine on the easel, so that the magazine stays straight and rests nicely on the easel. They are high enough up on the top of the bookcases that people don’t handle them a lot; and yet they are not too high up that people can’t see the covers and appreciate them for what they are. On a small business card size piece of card stock in front of each easel I have also put the date of the magazine and the story by Rex Stout that is contained in that magazine–this makes it easy for me and others to see what is special in that issue for a Rex Stout collector like myself.

I took a look around and found a site called Easels Direct (a store for every specialty these days, isn’t it great!) that had a nice selection of table top easels. I assume these are a similar product to what Barb is using.

Thanks again, Barb, for sharing how you display with us.