Improving personal collection

[Rusty_S]

I have a few questions pertaining to my Titanic collection.

First question, what are some items that I can look at to improve my collection. I know price isnt a limiting factor but the cost of a given item would be (wouldnt pay $500.00 for a piece of coal for example), what I currently have will be listed below.

My second question is how can one display said collection for the best effect? Currently I am limited on space and my book rack is currently filled up (3 levels with books) but majority of my collection covers my other hobbies and I would very much rather have my Titanic stuff seperated but all in one area.

My current collection.

Books
Titanic : The Ship Magnificent - Vol 1
Exploring the Titanic
Titanic Triump and Tragedy Second Edition
Titanic and her sisters Olympic and Britannic
882 1/2 Amazing Answers
Ghosts of the Abyss
James Cameron's Titanic (movie book from 1998)
Titanic Map
Ghost Liners (the thin paperback and the large book)
Ghosts of the Titanic (hardback)
Story of the Wreck of the Titanic (hardback)
Titanic by Col. Archibald Gracie
Story of the Titanic (softback first printing)
Her Name Titanic
The Night Lives On
Titanic the Long Night
Titanic Disaster Hearings

Memorabilia
Titanic Coal - Vase necklace centennial edition
colorized John F Kennedy half dollar x2
100th Anniversary limited edition commemorative coal coin (#03995/25000)
replica 1st class whiskey glass crystal construction
Deluxe 401 Rivet with display stand
framed chalk drawing of Titanic at speed by Eugene dated 1998



I would like to expand my collection books and memorabilia but as I stated above I am kind of limited on space and would like some recommendations on how one could display what I currently have.

Some of the kind of stuff I would be interested in would be reproductions of items found on Titanic. I heard rumors of someone working on making a 1:1 scale builders plaque as was found afixed to the forward facing bulkhead on B-deck, I would be interested in something like this. I would basically be interested in reproductions of items like the plaques, clocks, indicators, etc anything afixed to Titanic. I am not so much into the china to be honest. Maybe because I dont have a storage cabinet to display them in.

 

[Matthew Farr]

Its difficult to give you advice on how to display your collection without more information on the space/area available for it. How much apace are we talking about? Can you hang things on the walls? Is it possible to get a larger book shelf in there if you needed/wanted to? There are probably other things that I forgot about (I'm not an interior decorator or anything like that) but you probably get the idea.

I myself have quite a large collection of Titanic books and other memorabilia. I have a 7ft book case that has 5 shelves on it, four of which are full of books. The other shelf had my Dansbury Mint Titanic model on it. If you look in the groups section of this forum you can find a photo of it on the "Titanic Bibliophiles" group page. What I am getting at is that, if its possible for you to do so, you can get a larger book case and use one shelves as a display shelf for your other memorabilia.

As for what other items you should get to improve your collection, I think I can help you there. As I said before I have a rather large collection of Titanic books (over 150 at last count) so I can recommend many books to you but I would need to know what your specific interests are in Titanic (i.e. General History, Californian's Role, Passenger Research, Rivet Counter) Are you interested in acquiring rare and/or out of print books as well? There are two books that I did not see on your list that you should definitely get:

A Night To Remember by Walter Lord
Titanic: An Illustrated History by Don Lynch

These two are without a doubt must haves in any Titanic collection. I would also highly recommend "On a Sea of Glass" by Tad Fitch et al. One of the best books on the overall story of the Titanic I have ever read.

A couple of other items you might consider purchasing if you are interested in Titanic artwork would be prints of Titanic paintings by Ken Marschall and a pencil drawing done by Simon Fischer. I own three prints of Ken Marschall paintings and I think his artwork is absolutely stunning. I also have a scale pencil drawing by Simon Fischer that is very good as well.

 

[Rusty_S]

Its difficult to give you advice on how to display your collection without more information on the space/area available for it. How much apace are we talking about? Can you hang things on the walls? Is it possible to get a larger book shelf in there if you needed/wanted to? There are probably other things that I forgot about (I'm not an interior decorator or anything like that) but you probably get the idea.

I myself have quite a large collection of Titanic books and other memorabilia. I have a 7ft book case that has 5 shelves on it, four of which are full of books. The other shelf had my Dansbury Mint Titanic model on it. If you look in the groups section of this forum you can find a photo of it on the "Titanic Bibliophiles" group page. What I am getting at is that, if its possible for you to do so, you can get a larger book case and use one shelves as a display shelf for your other memorabilia.

As for what other items you should get to improve your collection, I think I can help you there. As I said before I have a rather large collection of Titanic books (over 150 at last count) so I can recommend many books to you but I would need to know what your specific interests are in Titanic (i.e. General History, Californian's Role, Passenger Research, Rivet Counter) Are you interested in acquiring rare and/or out of print books as well? There are two books that I did not see on your list that you should definitely get:

A Night To Remember by Walter Lord
Titanic: An Illustrated History by Don Lynch

These two are without a doubt must haves in any Titanic collection. I would also highly recommend "On a Sea of Glass" by Tad Fitch et al. One of the best books on the overall story of the Titanic I have ever read.

A couple of other items you might consider purchasing if you are interested in Titanic artwork would be prints of Titanic paintings by Ken Marschall and a pencil drawing done by Simon Fischer. I own three prints of Ken Marschall paintings and I think his artwork is absolutely stunning. I also have a scale pencil drawing by Simon Fischer that is very good as well.

I cant really hang anything on the walls at the moment, I have quite a bit on the walls. I could go bigger on the shelfing though, I need to start organizing my other collectibles soon as well so that would help me get more room.

I think I have "A Night To Remember", its not on my bookshelf but it might be around here somewheres. I also have an Illustrated history, it was my first book purchased on Titanic back in 1992-1993, problem is though it was a paperback and the binding is falling apart due to the numerous times Ive read through the book and studied the diagrams and artwork.

Its hard to really say on the specific interest on Titanic, I have been mainly focusing on the ship herself more than the passengers. Only reasons I got personal accounts of survivors is that it I believed it would help me understand more about what was going on with the ship and the layout. So I think my interests lean more towards general history and rivet counter.

I am definetly interested in artwork, been looking for a while to try and find some artwork that really catches my eyes but havent came across much to be honest.