My first shadowbox

[Reich]

Hello fellow collectors,

I have been working on and off (mostly off) on my shadowbox for the last couple of months. It is now complete for the most part and I wanted to share a glimpse of it with you guys.

This project ended up taking waaayyy too much time, but I'm glad that I finally have some kind of presentation for my tiny collection. I was pretty advanced in the project when I realised that the materials I was using weren't neutral, and as such, were going to degrade my collection over time. I ripped everything apart and started new.

Before I go into the details, here are some pictures for you folks. I'm aware that the reflection is terrible on the pictures... Trust me, it looks a lot better in real life.





The materials :

I bought the shadowbox at Michael's. It was prebuilt, but it had a glass window, so I had them replace it with an acrylic window that blocks 99% of UV rays.

The black background is a piece of 100% cotton that I glued on a acid-free foam board using acid-free spray adhesive. I also glued some non-bleached cotton on the shadowbox's real back, so that the medal ribbons going through the foam board are only in contact with neutral materials. I also put a piece of the same non-bleached cotton between the Kampfbinde and the black cotton, just in case.

The mounting :

The foam board is mounted on the shadowbox's real back using rivets that I spray-painted black. There are 8 of them, which you can see at the top as well as at the bottom.

The medals and the Kampfbinde are being held to the foam board by paperclips so as to not damage them in any way. The "Unser die Zukunft" medal is in a coin protector to which I applied double-sided tape. All the other small items are mounted using fishing line.

In conclusion, it's really NOT a time-effective solution for displaying collections. It took a significant amount of time and my collection is ridiculously tiny. In the end, however, I wanted to display my items in a matter that would preserve them well while still showing them off, and I think the final result is just that.

I would like to get some feedback on this project, and if anyone has any questions, I'll be glad to answer them.

Close shots of my items can be found here.

Thanks!

[MAP]

A+++

[Reich]

A+++

Thank you very much!

[MAP]

Better make some more...I started with one and am now up to 7... (of course, not as nice as your beauty)

[Chopperman]

Nicely done
It may not be "Time effective" but the results were worth the effort.

[Greenhorn]

Time well spent! Your display looks fantastic!

Mark

[SteveR]

It is obvious that you put a lot of time and thought into your project and you did very well.

[TrondK]

Wow, Impressive craftmanship. It looks so much better when the pieces of history is displayed in a dust "proof" box.

They are suddenly not only a piece of history, but also turned into "art" (cant find a more fitting word)

[Rossi]

Nice!

[rbminis]

Well done!
I am a fan of symmetry.
Ralph.