We recently found a maple, folding "bakers rack" at Target. It's not a period design, but ifs fairly plain with a natural wood finish and it folds to no more than about 2.5" thick for traveling and it gets some of our boxes up off the damp ground at outdoor events as well as conserving our floor space in the tent.

I just noticed True Value Hardware is now carrying the paint that you can use to turn a wall into a bulletin board because the paint will attract a magnet. It's rather expensive, but you can buy the quart "refill" for the kit which is just the paint without the magnets and special rollers that come with the kit itself. I was thinking it might be a useful idea for someone to try maybe for some form of changable display for photos, illustrations or signage in a booth. Maybe painted on the lid of a box, or table top to help hold down paper or fabric on windy day?

I know this ain't period, but I've got an old laptop I picked up cheap at a pawn shop, and for indoor shows where we have electricity available, I was toying with the idea putting together a Powerpoint slide show on it showing how I do my one-of-a-kind pieces. I've got a wooden gift box from some cheap wine we were given that the laptop -just- fits into, and I figured I could add to it a removable piece of the plywood which would have a sign saying what the slide show was about, and it would cover the keyboard so people couldn't play with the computer.

Menards sells a wooden folding workbench that goes on sale periodically for about $30.00. We picked one up that has been working well for us. We toss a plaid over it to hide the plastic bins that we stack on the shelve underneath it and use the top for display space. Al though it's not intended for travelling, ours has held up well although I had to add a couple screws to hold things together a little better after a couple years.

In stores and mail order catalogs in thelast couple years I've been seeing more free-standing folding screens designed to display photographs. I takes up a lot more space than a photo album, but I've thought it could be an eye-catching way to display examples of your custom work. The one at right is just one example, there are others which hold more pictures

Diagram for making a take apart trestle-type table for displaying your wares. Great for Renaissance Faires but equally at home for Mountain Man shoots, Civil War re-enactors, or any sales venue.
Submitted by Olde Hippie Productions
Table diagram

Norm Abrahms on the New Yankee Workshop just made a portable sheep-shearing table that looked like it might be useful as a display table or a worktable for stand-up projects. I figured some small wheels could be added to it to make it even more mobile. Go the the New Yankee website to get plans.

Here's a picture of a canvas pocket we sewed together to display our mail order fliers. We hang them just inside the front entry of our booth, or tent. They help keep the fliers from being blown around in the wind, free up table space for product displays, and at the end of the show, they just roll up for storage.

Here's multi-section version of a similar idea that we use to displaying game rule booklets we sell. We got the idea from hanging shoe-storage racks.

A 14th century Italian goldsmith's shop. The table with what looks like an Oriental or "Persian" rug caught my eye as a way to add soem color to a shop -epecially if you're selling something in neutral colors where the rug would create a nice background. Scanned from the "Medieval Panorama" edited by Robert Bartlet ISBN 0892366435