Charaxes fournierae

I cut transparent document covers or acetate sheets, but of very specific thickness and texture. They are hard to find and I only know if it's the good ones by touching them

The other ones don't work. if they're too thin or flexible, I can't works with them as well, and if they're too thick the pins won't hold the wingswell

I bought a box actually and it says "IGEMEX Document Covers"

no, when they have pinholes the plastic is pushed outwards and sticks out so it could rip a wing if you use them again

I guess you can re-use them once if you reverse the strip

Final Resting Place




I use lazer guides to line up the frames on my wall now .You can see where I put the Bebearia arcadius and Euphaedra perseis I got last year

Data is on my computer on a spreadsheet

I only have these displays (62 of these frames total ). My goal is to look at them all the time and not open drawers. I only need ONE specimen of all the most beautiful species/sub species in the world. I have 1400 specimens and I'm missing about 75 species to "officially" finish my collection with all the species I ever wanted .I often re-buy specimens to get the best quality possible

Dark room so no light damage. I only turn on lights to view them .

I never open the displays unless I want to change a specimen (use forceps to grab the body.) and not to look at the undersides

I've had some of the butterflies in there for 30 years and in my experience they are far safer in the long term than pinned. They stay EXACTLY as initially set and wings and antenaes don't ever break or crack (if you how how to work with Rikers properly). If I do re-pin a a specimen it will look like the day I removed it from the spreading board and completely flat

I use 3 pins on each side of the Riker to prevent any lateral movement of the glass cover

You need to clean the inside of the glass (regular windex) every 2 years to remove the traces of oil that seep from the bodies

The only rearranging I do is to place specimens optimally in relation to it's size .When I get a rare specimen I place it in an older display to minimize handling and put aside the common one for a new frame

I measure the wing tips with a ruler from the bottom of the glass to make sure all the specimens are straight.


The ONLY negative is a few legs might fall off sometimes, but they also fall out during setting anyways .Also if I die good luck to the person who has to deal with these frames (but I don' t care about that)

Displaying them like this is a technique I've developed over the years. I don't recommend anyone randomly tries it because it takes a lot more patience

Why insulting a collector who died 100 years ago with unproven supposition ?

+ it makes no sense at all. If you have a local collector finding you some thousand-francs lep, you pay him well to get others in the future. You wouldn't whack and steal him.

Those are some very impressive displays. Among the specimens, I see at least several species that (due to price) I'm probably unlikely to ever own, including a certain African one!


Do very many collectors ever actually reach that point?  To me, it seems that there is always "one more specimen" (or, two, or three, or four...) to get!