Advice on archival quality materials for cabinet display/storage (cameo collection)
If this isn’t an appropriate fit for this sub, let me know and I’ll remove it!
I’m not a museum professional, though I have my own very small hobby museum I’ve been building - this isn’t related to that but some context on why I want to learn.
I have a large museum cabinet - allegedly originally from the Chicago Field Museum but who knows - much taller than me that I keep personal collections in. I’m ready to start arranging the drawer contents for display (just in my house!) but I want to make sure I’m not doing them harm. The drawer interiors are unlined unstained wood so I want to line them.
In this case it’s my cameo collection drawer, consisting of pins, rings, and miniature portraits in stone, shell, plastic, glass, metal, paper, and porcelain. It’s not worth much money but that doesn’t matter to me and I want to do it right! I don’t mind spending money. I want to lay it out in a layer of foam with a fabric over the foam. The drawer is 24.5 x 23”.
I was thinking of putting down 1” black Ethafoam. 1) Is that necessary or overkill to use an archival foam?
2) Can I put black velvet liner on top or is that potentially harmful to the cameos?
3) Any recommendation on the layout for how to label them? I wasn’t sure about pinning small printed labels in vs other methods. The labels will have subject, type of object, material(s), and era.
Thank you for any advice!