Who has glass cases? Where'd you get them?

I have a china hutch. The original I bought used to $75 and the one I’m using now belonged to my grandmother, then my mother, now me.

My glass case is from Ikea – Gustolfr or something like that. 😈

It’s on the smaller side. I checked for the weight and it can hold emperors, though I only put one on a glass shelf (the other one goes on the bottom or top wooden shelf). Each glass shelf only has 2 pieces on each. I wouldn’t cram a bunch on there, but I like to display only a few on each shelf anyway. I’d definitely get another one if I needed it.

It slows down the dust a bit, but not altogether!

I picked up a great case when the local Hallmark shop closed down. The competition for the cases was unbelievable: you had to get there right away and all but sit on the case you wanted. We bought two more (much less nice) when another shop moved to a smaller storefront. Keep an eye out for Hallmark, curio, New Age, or jewelry shops that are going out of business or moving; sooner or later you’ll find one with what you need. Just be cautious and make sure you can actually transport what you buy! We had a narrow squeak with ours, and it was a good thing we didn’t have to drive very far. I had to pass on another beautiful case because there was just no way to get it home without renting a hitch and trailer, and we didn’t have the time to carry it off.

Sometimes you can find a local cabinetmaker who will build custom cases. I have also had decent luck at Ikea, although the ones I found are definitely limited on weight tolerance per shelf. Still, they look nice and they weren’t too hard to build. Another option for single pieces is to go over to Michael’s and look at their little display boxes for basketballs, baseballs, etc. An Old Warrior fits (with a little turning and fiddling) into a basketball case; a Lap fits perfectly in a football case; a Coiled Mother or griffin chick in the baseball case. They look really nice in them, and boy does it keep the dust off! Gotta love that! 😀

I bought my 3 new ones at a store that was going out of business. They are big solid glass, with a mirrored bottom and a locking door. I paid $900 for all three of them but originally they were $3000 a case. You can get great value if you watch for that sort of thing. 🙂

I got my first one from an antique dealer that was retiring in a town close by and paid a friend and his friend to haul it here and put wheels on it. It cost about 200 to the dealer and another 100 to get it here and wheel it. It has lights and mirrors and locks on it. It’s 6′ long and about 3′ deep. I also bought a smaller one with lights and mirrors and a lock, and it was mounted on the wall above the first one. Both have glass shelves of 3/4″ glass, not tempered. That last one cost about 100.
When I ran out out of room, I hired an out-of-work cabinet maker to build another one on top of the first one so it is now one large case also with lights, mirrors, and a lock, and glass shelves 3/4″ thick. That gave me a total of 4 shelves, because I took the shelves out of the bottom one to put the SK’s in because it holds the weight being wooden. This cabinet looks really good and is bolted to the wall for stability. I moved the smaller one across from the big one.The new handbuilt one cost about 1500. Then I ran out of room again, so I hired another out-of-work cabinet maker to build me another one under the small one. It cost about 1000. So then I had one really big one, a small one, and a medium one.
In the meantime, a friend found another cabinet also with lights, mirrors, lock, and wheels on craigslist for 50 which I snapped up and the seller delivered it. It’s in great condition,(the seller used it to keep his Starwars collection in it and was moving out of state) It also has glass shelves in it and a mirrored bottom. So now I had 4 cabinets. Then I was running out of room again, and a forum member mentioned a collectible shop going out of business in a town about 4 hours away. I drove down there and I was stunned at the cabinets! They were retiring and they were selling about 30 cabinets, almost all had wheels, all were lighted and locked, almost all were glass shelved. Some were huge, some were small, most were tall. They had famous names like Hallmark, Lalique, even CocaCola, the miniature houses, jewelry, dolls, animal figurines, etc. So I bought 3 cabinets, two larger ones and one slightly smaller one, a Howard Miller which has a dark wooden frame, four glass shelves, and a beautiful carved top. The seller had four of them, all the same. Because I was buying 3, they gave me a better price, 800 each. I also had to get my granddaughter and 2 of her friends and her truck to drive 8 hours round trip and gas to get them here and unload them. Then I decided 2 weeks later to buy the other three Howard Miller cabinets at an even better price of 700 each. ( They are selling originally for 1600) I also had to hire 2 college students who had a truck to go down there with me and load them up and drive them back because my granddaughter wasn’t available and I had to get them before the store closed. (They were also selling all their stuff at 70-90% off! So I got some other stuff too!)
So, I am up to ten cabinets and finally I have enough space for quite a while, and no more room for any more cabinets. I am still rearranging Windstones. I have one shelf with other things, like my small Swarovski crystal collection, tiny rock dragon and pegasus collection, and some jade pieces. The shelves are all 3/4″ glass and will be strong enough to hold whatever I decide to put on them if the weight is distributed evenly and there aren’t huge really heavy pieces. I have 13 mother dragons on two shelves with no problems. 13 sun orientals on one shelf, 20 laps on two shelves, 4 SK’s on one bottom shelf, and lots of others spread out on the other shelves. One shelf has thirteen hatchings and thirteen matching youngs, another shelf has 6 coils and 24 curlies, and one shelf has nine fledges, a pair of dragon bookends, 4 orientals, and 6 baby orientals, and one shelf has 23 males. Other shelves have 6 large wizards, 2 windwizards, 5 small wizards and the woodlore wizard. and also pegasuses and unicorns. The many cats, flapcats and miniature, purring and candleholders, the only Windstone tiger cub in existence, the bobcat, wolf sculptures, and other animal sculptures like the duck, armadillo, mother bear, Galapagos turtle, box turtle, many owls, are on the other shelves and 4 sconces, the leaf cat, lion’s head, wolf head and large owl are mounted on the walll. One shelf has 2 mothers, 5 male and 5 griffin chicks, and another shelf has 2 mothers, 2 males and 3 original baby ki-rins and 6 test paint baby ki-rins. There is also a wizard’s retreat and a stone cottage and 3 castles, among other stuff. All of these are in my office, not at home. Including prints, I think there are over 350, maybe 360.
I would post pictures but I haven’t learned how to do that. I tried 2 years ago and they were awful. I tried again last year and they were so bad that Jennifer had to close down the thread!! So I’m trying to get them in better order and try again, I hope by early next year. I envy all of you who take pictures so well and easily!!!! and post them so fast!! I’m a dinosaur and slow as evolution at learning computer stuff. I haven’t given up trying to learn this stuff that youall take for granted!!
Anyway, that’s it on my experiences with display cabinets. I decided to get the first one when I had a family of old greens in a box in the storage room. Then I thought why have them if they are only in a box where no one can see them? After I bought the first cabinet, I went to look for them and couldn’t find them. Then I decided I would never hide the Windstones ever again, they are meant to be displayed and enjoyed and protected from dust and chips and damage. It took me 2 years to find them!!! (The box was mislabeled!)
I recommend looking at businesses that are going out of business and that might have display cases as well as thrift shops, curio shops, collectible shops, and cabinet shops. I feel very fortunate to have found the ones I have that are so well suited to display Windstones!! They are so well worth the time, trouble, and expense!!!

Most of my Windstones are either sitting on my desk in my home office, on my night stand/dresser/chest of drawers in my room, or on those cheap book cases you can get from Walmart or Target for $30. They are 5 shelves tall, stupidly heavy for the size box they come in, much assembly required (but I like putting stuff together : )) and each shelf holds about 33 lbs-or 3 Windstones. One shelf in the middle holds about 75lbs so Ive got 3 OWs on there 🙂 If you wedge an old magazine or scraps of cardboard underneath the front to give it a slight lean towards the wall, they are pretty sturdy. I always set something heavy but unbreakable on it over night to test it out.

I also have a totally glass shelf from IKEA (Detolf or something?) which I got on sale for maybe $30-$50. I have no clue what the weight limit on the glass shelves are, so I only have 1 big Windstone per shelf and some smaller ones like curlies or small flap cats. I’ve got my favorite Emerald Riser on a shelf, so they hold at least 15lbs!
But I’m like you, I dont have my own place yet-or a steady paycheck so I don’t have space for really nice display cases, much less the funds to get them. I did find also (although its not currently holding Windstones, it will!) a 4′ wooden display cabinet with glass shelves at Garden Ridge. It was regularly $100, marked down to $50. But when I checked out, since it was the last one in the store, it didn’t have a bar code…and when the clerk entered in the bar code number written inside, it rang up $7.00 😆 😀 So they laughed about it, shrugged and sold it to me for $7 🙂 It has a light inside it too! And a mirrored back.

I got mine all from Michaels, they have a lot of 50% off sales on them so I always grab them during those so they’re like $25 bucks each. They’re really nice & fit Windstones great I think! I used the basketball one for Old Warriors and the Football one for Lap dragons. They have baseball ones too that fit perfect for most of the small Windstones. Curlies, Griffin chicks, coiled mothers, etc. 🙂