The Premium Standard
In the early 1990s, sports memorabilia was exploding into a major collector's market — and the only display cases on the market were cheap, pressboard imitations of what the category deserved. With a background already running an acrylic and wood business, I saw the gap and set out to build something better.
Instead of pressboard, I used a higher-grade material, finished in lacquer — White, Black, and Light Gray. The plaques came out beautifully. Then I laid each plaque flat and custom-built a clear acrylic box mounted directly on top, turning the case itself into a piece worthy of what it held.
Within a couple of months I had over 100 case types in production: footballs, basketballs, baseballs, boxing gloves, hats, helmets — every category collectors were chasing.
That signature display, paired with the lacquered plaque-and-acrylic system, made TRZ Designs the number-one high-end sports memorabilia display company in the USA — the cases the serious collectors and the serious dealers came to when nothing else would do.
