Chaos and Kanji is the blog where I write about my adventures through Japan!

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Saturday, December 14, 2019

On Display, or Not?

Let's keep the question train going, shall we?

Today, I answer Corky's question of whether or not I display my cards.

Spoiler: the answer now is no. (TL:DR at the bottom.)

Short story long: (if we say long story short, why not short story long to mean an overly descriptive story?)

As a kid, I didn't really display my cards. My first cards were rubber-cemented to some thin poster board and then stored under my bed. Those "posters" could have been displayed for a while, but it couldn't have been for too long. As I got into collecting and had more than a couple packs worth of cards, I had a few souvenirs on a shelf, but my cards stayed in a box or binder when I wasn't sorting, studying, or just flipping through them. Yup, all those originally-mint-condition '89 Donruss cards got their corners softened as I got to know the players on each team. I eventually turned the tiny closet in my tiny bedroom into a baseball shrine... a boy's man cave of sorts. But I don't think I ever displayed cards there; the wall space was reserved for posters and newspaper clippings.

When we moved across the country, I got myself a normal-sized bedroom and an unfinished half-basement to call my own full-size man cave. I ended up getting two showcases which I used to display a few cards and small souvenirs, and little shelves for my bigger souvenirs. I must have had one or two of those cheap wall-hanging 30-card displays at some point. But for the most part, my cards stayed in binders or boxes. I lost my bedroom when the basement was finished; the basement was both my bedroom and man-cave. So I had less space to do something like display cards.
This picture is in part of my basement bedroom after it was finished, but before they actually put shutters on the windows (it was a half-basement). So it's probably 1993. You can see the display case, which holds some Topps Coins, a few game tickets, and a couple oversized cards as well. I have a baseball poster on the right, and a small shelf with a few souvenirs above the computer. The binder held my star cards, whatever that meant back then. It might have held Nolan Ryan, Ken Griffey Jr., Jose Canseco, and some Braves cards.

Eventually I stopped collecting in college, and when I came back into the hobby I didn't display any of my collection for quite a while. Even when I moved into my own two bedroom apartment I kept the cards stored away. Some of my souvenirs found their way onto shelves, but I don't recall displaying cards.

I then moved into a loft which had lots of open space. This was perfect for setting up shelving to display my collections. And again the cards stayed in storage - binders or boxes that could be looked through but no cards on display to look at. However, once I got my Nolan Ryan and Ken Griffey Jr. autographs, I had a desire to have them on display. So I put them on shelves with figures of those players. I did the same with a Tony Gwynn autograph I had.
I think I had six cheap Ikea "bookcase" shelving units - they cost about $20 and weren't strong enough to hold binders or boxes of cards beyond the bottom shelf, but they were perfect for displaying all of my random memorabilia. And boy did I have a lot. The binders you can see actually have ticket stubs from my travels and events I've attended. The right-most shelving unit has all of the packaging and oddball cards I've gotten from packs and boxes, while the other two have team souvenirs.

I still have that Wheaties box, and it still has its cereal. And those bats are all game-used cracked bats I picked up at minor league games. If you look closely at the shelves, you'll see there's only one team on each shelf. I was very happy to have the space to do that, though the Indians shelf is quite sparse, with only a cross-stitch logo my mom made for me.

I have some uncut sheets, which I put on display too. About 15 years ago, when all kinds of crazy relics were coming out, I used some snap cases and magnet tape to display some cards on the breaker door on my wall. It was pretty poorly located - right in the eyeline of someone first looking in the apartment - so covering it with cards was an attempt to make it look better. I suppose I could have put one of those uncut sheets over it, or some poster. Regardless, there weren't many cards on display even though I had tons of cheap souvenirs on cheap Ikea shelving.

But when I moved back to California, everything went into storage, and while living in SF I didn't display any cards. I brought one cheap card from every Topps, Donruss, Fleer, Score, and Upper Deck set with me when I moved to Japan, and I used removable double-sided tape to display them along the top of my wall, like a border.

Unfortunately, when I moved out of that apartment, anything I had on display was packed away, and while I now have a couple figures on a small shelf, my apartment is essentially devoid of any decorating or personalization. I still have all of those cards, and some day I may take the time and effort to line them up along the wall of my current apartment.

How about the future? One thing I would really like to do is to frame the roller coaster cabinet cards from 2012 Allen & Ginter and display those on a wall. It combines two of my favorite interests into one little attractive package. I would like to display uncut sheets along a wall. And I would love to have a little display for each of my player collections - perhaps a representative card alongside the player's bobblehead or other figure.

So long story short: no, I don't display my cards now. I used to have a few on display, and I'd love to do it again!

10 comments:

  1. I grew up in an era when you put your cards in a box or a binder or in a stack on your nightstand next to your bed. Displaying was never a thought, and still seems a little weird to me.

    But I do have my original, moldy 1975 Topps cards in those Michael's wall hangings in my card room.

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    1. Yeah, I never really thought of displaying my cards; it was basically things that I couldn't easily store like the boxes/tins of the mid-2000s or some oversize cards. I folded my Donruss All-Stars stand-ups in the 1980s to display, for a little while at least.

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  2. I don’t display my cards for fear of light fading the ink, but I do like to look at pictures of other people’s hobby caves.

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    1. Fading is a concern for me; I've seen plenty of faded cards and boxes at card shows. I think that's one reason why some of the stores make color copies of their higher-priced cards for the showcases (theft reduction being another). The cards I decorated my room with in Koshigaya (and will probably re-display again) were cheap pickups that I'm not concerned about. If I do frame those A&G cards, they'll be UV protected at the least.

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  3. I have never had a dedicated card room, or any place to display my collection like I would like to.

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    1. I guess that's one of the perks of being single.

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  4. I have two of those card displays purchased at Michaels and maybe 5 or 6 cards sitting on shelves in my office. I had more, but learned the hard way the damage natural light has on cards.

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    1. Now that I think about it, my living spaces generally have been pretty lacking in natural light. The half-basement got some sunlight in the morning, but generally stayed dark. And my loft's "card space" only got a little natural light that reflected off of the walls - no direct light. Of course, even light bulbs can fade things.

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  5. I kind of enjoy reading of man caves that people in North America have.

    Japanese, and foreigners living in Japan, just can't partake in that ritual due to space constraints. The only people I've ever seen having something equivalent (and they aren't baseball card collectors, mostly anime or video game enthusiasts) are single and without kids, so they can just decorate their entire living space.

    If you live with other people though basically every square inch of space in the home has a functional purpose it is devoted to so you just don't get to do anything like that, which is kind of frustrating. My whole collection is just in boxes or binders now. Maybe in 20 years when my kids have grown up and moved out I'll be able to set one up though. Hope I still like cards when I'm in my 60s!

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    1. I've seen a few pictures of otaku apartments around Japan. I don't think I could surround my actual living space with so many things that I was immersed in my hobby. Going to my card space is one thing, waking up surrounded by cards and figures and posters and blankets and everything else would probably lead to burn out. Even though I'm single, I just can't see me completely covering every inch of my apartment with baseball stuff. When I lived in the US, all of my hobbies and interests were away from my main living space... which in some cases was a corner, while others were an entire room.

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