OK, “undisplayable” may be a little harsh.  But I don’t think it’s an entirely unfounded statement that your average fanboy is going to wind up with a ton of cool THINGS that they want to have on display but that are a little annoying to actually display.  Stuff like keychains, can badges, strap hangers, that kind of thing.

Like this stuff

There are always options, of course.  I’ve definitely had my share of small hanging things thumbtacked to the wall, and mounting a bunch of can badges to a square of felt and then sticking that up somewhere would work as well.

But either of those options has always struck me as a little tacky.

Pun not actually intended but I caught in on like my third proofreading pass of this and I was too proud of it to take it out.

One thing I found in Japan that I thought was going to be at least a partial answer were these little acrylic stands:

They were cheap, came in a couple of different shapes and you got like half a dozen per package.  They seemed perfect!

Well, no.

It turned out that they had very strict limits on what you could put in them, and because the notches were so small they were really limited.

Serval-chan fits!

I managed to make them work for a couple of things, and they were cute enough, but I think most of these are going to go forever unused.

So that didn’t go well.

On the other hand, I was watching a YouTube video where a devoted Genshin fan was showing off their desk,  and these things jumped out at me:

No, not the Barbara can badges and acrylic stands, though I would very much like those as well.  THE FRAMES.

Even better, the YouTuber in question carefully went over all of the stuff on her desk and explained that these frames were from a company called Ouxee.  Maybe OUXEE?  I’m not sure how it should be stylized.  Let’s go with Ouxee for now.

A quick google search later revealed that Ouxee has a catalog made up of all kinds of shelves and storage solutions for very weird spaces.  Stuff like an under-sink shelving unit that you fit in around the drainpipe:

Super handy, no?

And also and more importantly, a lot of assorted stands and tiny shelves for displaying nerd goods.

The ones I had fallen immediately in love with were these things:

Amazon listing

Naturally, they do not sell their products outside of Japan because we’re not worthy, or something, BUT they were happy to charge a small* fee for international shipping and it did not take long before I had 10 of these rectangular frame things and 4 larger square ones.

It turned out that they work very well!  They’re basically a plastic frame with two sheets of slightly stretchy, slightly sticky clear plastic that you can open up, stick things in, and close – and whatever you put in stays put, at least so far.

Keychains

Can Badges

Straps and a small acrylic stand

I have no idea how good these things will be long-term.  Plastic always has a tendency to yellow, after all.  Also, I’m not sure how reusable they are since the act of putting anything into them and closing them will stretch the plastic slightly.  My wife found an example online of using a hair dryer on low heat to “reset” them, so it’s possible they’re made out of a thermoplastic similar to heat shrink tubing?

But, for now they’re pretty cool.  My terrible photography skills aside, they do a great job of “floating” your small items in a way that lets you show them off and they come in either black or white to match your space’s vibe.

And, yes, I need to remove the “Remove Tag” tag from my lamp.  The problem is that once you do that the lamp can never be moved again as the bottom of it is covered in a very strong adhesive.

* The international shipping fee wasn’t actually that small.

10-days-later update:  While I was searching for something else entirely on Amazon, I found that these things ARE available in the US.  They seem to be mostly sold as displays for coin collectors, which makes sense.  Here’s one listing.