Since I started in the hobby (collecting glass insulators) 8 years ago I have displayed all my pieces against sun-lit windows. As a wood-worker with a full wood-shop in my basement, I have built three 'shelving cases' all of which are mounted or placed against windows. I have always believed that natural solar lighting was 'the best way' to appreciate the colors that I have collected. Sure, I have been to many a fellow collectors' homes, where I have seen hundreds, if not thousands of pieces displayed within artificially back-lit cases. Most of these were very impressive, especially Tommy Bolack's and Don Briel's. But I have always resisted going down the back-lit path. That is until I 'ran out of room'.

While our three kids have flown our coop, leaving numerous windows 'open', my goal was to never place insulators that I 'wanted to see' in rooms that I rarely went into. In other words, I really only want to have insulators displayed in rooms that I 'live in' every day. And, at this point, I have 'used up' all 'available' windows in the several rooms that fit the bill. It is unfortunate, but I cannot co-op every window in which my wife would prefer *not* to have shelves and insulators displayed. So, looking at the rooms I do have 'control' of, I decided to re-purpose the shelf within a 'hutch' piece within my [home] office desk system (I have one of those 3 piece desk-return-hutch combination pieces). The shelf was 15 1/2" tall, 12" deep and 38" wide, and contained various nick-nacks, books, papers, etc that accumulated there over the 21 years we've been in the house. I figured I could move all that stuff out, and install one, maybe two glass shelves, giving me over 9' of display space. BUT…with a solid wall behind the hutch, I would have to use artificial back lighting.

This photo is of the cleared-out hutch book shelf.