Our Stand Philosophy
We believe making the perfect display stand is all about balance.
Done right, a good stand greatly enhances the beauty and quality of the object it displays, but does not steal the spotlight. It adds as much value as possible for the least amount of investment. It holds its prize safely and securely, but can be added or removed without damage or difficulty. It adds elegance and information, but is not a distraction. It is custom made to match its object and surroundings perfectly, but can be acquired quickly and without hassle. It is made with the best craftsmanship and materials so that it lasts a lifetime, but is affordable.
Like milk and cookies, once put together, the proper stand and its display piece become a single whole that is greater than the sum of its two parts. The ideal stands are transformative, like adding just the right seasonings to a dish turns food into cuisine, the perfect display stands turn your clutter into a collection.
Our Beginning
Stone Throne started from what seemed like a simple objective: to acquire display stands to show off our owners' mineral collection. Our criteria seemed simple enough:
1. Attractive: to make our "good" collection look "great".
2. Sturdy: unlike the flimsy imported stands that constantly threaten to tip over at any moment.
3. Engraved: so we could add labels to the front and catalog numbers to the back of the stand itself and finally abandon those ubiquitous paper labels and catalog stickers that are both unattractive and easily lost.
4. Affordable: to put the whole collection on display without spending hundreds per stand.
We were dismayed to find no display stands meeting these criteria existed. After years of frustrated searching and research, we created Stone Throne in Denver, Colorado in 2017 to make the perfect stands ourselves, and we think you will love them as much as we do.
Our Process
Our custom stands start with the finest grade 1" thick cell-cast acrylic (also known as lucite or plexiglass) precision cut to strict specifications.
A beveled top edge completes the museum quality look, and the whole stand is polished to a mirror finish.
Your design is produced by us in computer software and your stand is loaded into the engraving machine. Engraving is done with a state-of-the-art and ultra-precise laser engraver capable of accurately producing crisp, recessed letters with details as fine as a human hair.
Next, we add color fill to the engraving, if ordered, using specialty paints and pigments that are custom blended here in our workshop in Denver, Colorado.
Once dried, the stand is then cleaned of any stray color before carefully adding any support pegs you requested by cutting and polishing lengths of acrylic rod. After a final quality inspection to make sure everything matches your design and meets our exacting standards, your stand is given a final polish, sealed in a protective bag, and packed for shipping with the rest of your order.
Depending on the options selected, each stand or label wedge may take as little as 15 minutes or as long as several hours for us to produce by hand, but the results are always stunning!
Our Process
Making our custom stands start with the finest grade 1" thick cell-cast acrylic (also known as lucite and plexiglass) precision cut to strict specifications. A beveled top edge completes the museum quality look, and the whole stand is polished to a mirror finish.
Your design is produced by us in computer software and your stand is loaded into the engraving machine. Engraving is done with a state-of-the-art and ultra-precise laser engraver capable of accurately producing crisp, recessed letters with details as fine as a human hair.
Next, we add color fill to the engraving, if ordered, using specialty paints and pigments that are custom blended here in our workshop in Denver, Colorado.
Once dried, the stand is then cleaned of any stray color before carefully adding any support pegs you requested by cutting and polishing lengths of acrylic rod.
After a final quality inspection to make sure everything matches your design and meets our exacting standards, your stand is given a final polish, sealed in a protective bag, and packed for shipping with the rest of your order.
Depending on the options selected, each stand or label wedge may take as little as 15 minutes or as long as several hours for us to produce by hand, but the results are always stunning!
Our knowledge
As professional geologists, college professors, craftsman, and life-long collectors, our team has been fortunate to have accumulated numerous tips, tricks, and nuggets of wisdom about collecting, preparing, cataloging, displaying, and lighting our collections from experiences, research, and our colleagues and friends around the world in the collecting community.
It seems natural to us to try to pass as much of this information as possible to as many people as possible.
In our blog below, we will be posting articles, videos, and reviews on these subjects and curating them for easy access. New content will be made on a regular basis, so check back often, or subscribe to our newsletter to see the updates.
If you have an idea or a request for something you would like to see here, we would love to hear from you!