Allright, so what’s this all about then? Well, here’s the thing. When I moved to my new flat, I knew that I wanted to have a special place where I could display my miniatures. So naturally I bought a display case with glass shelves and doors and it’s been the dedicated camp area for all my figures ever since. Great, right
Well, both yes and no. First of all, I was slightly amazed over how quickly those shelves filled up to their capacity. One shelf is entirely dedicated to my 28mm Anglo-Saxons. Another is filled with my 6mm ACW minis and yet another is hardly coping with the 6mm Napoleonic collection. That leaves four shelves, and those are already partially filled with 28mm gladiators, 15mm ancient Greeks and Vietnam period US infantry.
Shelves providing camp area for my 6mm collections are troubling in their own particular way – the figures are… well, tiny! So while at an arm’s length they do cause the, in my opinion at least, well-deserved uuuuhs and aaaahs from ‘civilians’, at longer ranger they lool depressingly empty.
It was this particular problem that I decided to solve and the solution seemed obvious – I needed some plexiglas boxes. Well… finding the solution on theoretical level may have been simple, but finding suitable product turned out to be quite a challenge! Extensive search on the internet gave me links to several companies making plexiglas display cases and demanding ridiculous amounts of money for their products. Next target-rich environment turned out to be cosmetics shops - women need to store their stuff too and transparent plastic boxes are practical. Prices required by the beauticians were however still too steep for my taste.
My saviour turned out to be a shop chain called Søstrene Grene. Originating from Denmark, but existing in all major towns of Scandinavia, they are a quaint little operation, selling all sorts of things that make girls say ‘oh so cute!’. Surprisingly, they also have a shedload of stuff that has potential making wargamers say ‘oh, that’s interesting!’. Very useful storage boxes with locks, dirt cheap brushes of very good quality and acrylic paints in large tubes are but a few examples of stuff that could catch your fancy. Also, they sell boxes which turned out to be exactly what I was looking for.
Made out of 3mm crystal-clear plexiglas, with inner dimensions of 16x11x4 centimeter, with hinged cover that can be opened 180 degrees and flat bottom (thus stackable), they seem to be created for storage and display of miniatures. Also they are really cheap, 38SEK per unit, which considering the alternatives, is pretty much free of charge!
Pics below show the empty box and one of new ‘homes’ for my French Napoleonic infantry. If you, like me, feel that the shelves containing your miniatures do look a little empty, you should definitely take a trip to Søstrerne Grene and check out those boxes.
