'ANCIENT OR MODERN' Coin trays or cabinet?? help please

Ok, everyone will have an opinion on this and I am interested in them all, because it may be an expensive purchase for me.
I need a means to store and exhibit my coins......because there will be ancients only, the coin trays or spaces will need to be varied in size. At the moment, whilst I have many thousands of coins, they are all in bags in several drawers, mainly for resale, but I need to be able to pick out the keepers and get them away from the bags.
Please photograph and show me how you do it, or offer any advice.....
I would like a cabinet or means to store 1000 as a starter. I dont want to buy small and then have to buy again as I will grow attached to my cabinet/box?, so i'd rather start big....but I'm eager to hear how you all started. Makes and types of coin storing equipment you use are all helpful as well as an idea of price.
Thanks in anticipation.........

 

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I don't have a great answer. I used to do albums but they got too heavy/bulky so I just switched to flips in boxes. Fill a box, take it to the sdb and start another.

If you are looking at storage for 1000 coins, a cabinet will be pricey. There have been great threads here about the dangers of cabinets and what wood to use, I would research those.

I would LIKE a cabinet, but with the way the world is today I simply am more comfortable with my collection residing in a sdb rather than my home. I would simply go berserk if I came home one day and all of my coins were gone.

 

I use flips in boxes. Cheap and effective but I'm also looking for another way.

 

I have my collection in 2x2 flips that are then stored in pages in a binder, do I love this? No, it's a pain having to re-arrange them whenever I get something new, mostly if its a duplicate emperor or empress I plan on keeping.

But I do like this system better since before I had them in flips & stored in long boxes and the flips scuffed up badly.

I would love to do trays but they take up alot of space and I am afraid shifts/movement would damage the coins, even though I have read some ways to remedy this.

Like Chris, would love a cabinet but they're expensive and its not something I am comfortable having around.

So for now the binders is my storage.

 

i have some in an album, but as mat said it is a pain to rearrange. also, i get some extra glare in the album and it's hard for me to see the coin sometime. currently, i have them in 2x2 flips in boxes. easy to get in and out of, rearrange, whatever.
have toyed with the cabinet idea for some coins, even shopped some, but never committed. theft deterrence has also been something i've thought about now that i have a few nicer coins.

 

Coins, air and wood don't match. Keep them away from those. Cardboard self adhesive holders in albums or boxes is best imo.

 

i didn't know about the wood thing...i knew that some types of paper are bad...so the same issue? didn't make that connection.

 

" Coins, air and wood don't match. Keep them away from those. Cardboard self adhesive holders in albums or boxes is best imo."

Wood is bad to ancient coins as well?

 

Yes. Most woods are horrible for coins, with oak being one of the worst. Of course, any wood with any stain or finish is bad. About the only wood that is NOT horrible for coins is real mahogany, (not cheap philippine mahagony). This is why most coin cabinets are mahogany cabinets.

 

Oak fumes tone coins. Mahogany is more inert. People like toned coins better today than they once did so maybe oak is not as bad as it once was. If I lived in England where the hobby has been practiced for centuries, I would keep an eye out for coin cabinets from the century before last. I suspect wood fumes dissipate with time. I once saw a wood cabinet over six feet tall and four feet wide with hundreds of little narrow drawers. I suspect buying it now for what seems like a lot of money will be recouped when it is sold by your grandchildren. Custom cabinetry does not get cheap.
I have recently been moving my coins from trays to 2x2 paper envelopes in single row boxes that store most efficiently in the safe deposit box. I try to look at each coin once a year but probably don't really do that. I have photos of every coin I own and look at the photos so having the coins in open trays means less than it used to. The correct answers for this depends on whether you have 30 or 3000 coins. Part of me wants to sell off enough coins that I could pick up the ones that are left all at once. I can not do that now.

If I had 300 coins, I would not consider anything besides open trays. I love the way they allow playing with the coins. I was younger when this photo was taken and my collection was smaller.

 

I would do the 2x2 paper envelopes if there was some available with clear windows to see the coin, similar to the carboard flips. And I dont wanna have to hand make them each either.

 

Great advice so far, thanks. 2 x 2 flips.. what are these please?.
What does the wood fume do? if it tones, then I'm ok with that, I want my coins to continue 'ageing'. If it brings on BD/encourages dampness, then no.
I have a few silver coins, but they are mostly bronze, so toning is not an issue for me. couldnt have them in a (took me a while to work out the abbreviation) sdb, I need to handle them often. I'd hate to lose a collection, insured or not, but I'd rather not have coins I cannot handle whenever I walk past them. (sadly I pick them up ...alot!)
I also have to see them, no doubt about that, and handle them easily. So, I have to have open trays or drawers, with some means to store them, be it a cabinet or tray holding system. I have heard about trays with sloping shelves running the width of the tray tilting the coin towards the viewer. Anyone heard of these?
I think a cabinet from 19th century would run into the thousands....maybe not an option for me. Maybe an adapted slide/specimen cupboard....I have seen them for a few hundred?

 

Theres a chap in Ireland who makes cabinets for about £200 from solid Mahogany. they look pretty nice to me and you can choose dimensions of recesses which he lines with green felt. Its item 111255432895 on ebay UK. I may enquire whether he can do red felt.

 

Nice cabinets. This is something like what I've been looking for, but haven't found. Too bad he doesn't ship to the US, but, then again, the shipping costs would probably be prohibitive.

 

probably $50 shipping on a slow boat? If you want one, I'd have it sent here and ship it for you, but there must be people who can make them in the states?

 

Popular u.s. maker, http://www.cabinetsbycraig.net/index.html

 

I keep all of my coins in a wonderful collection of ten x 3-ring binders (soon to be "eleven" x 3-ring binders) ... each coin is housed in its own seperate PVC-free page ...

=> the best part about this arrangement is the simplicity of adding a new coin (I merely insert the new page into its proper order in the binder, rather than having to move all of my coins each time a new coin is purchased ... "plus" I can easily keep pages and pages of notes associated with each coin in these lovely binders ....... oh, and then I store all of the binders in a big 500 pound gun-safe!!



=> hey, it may not be the best way for everybody, but it certainly works for this guy!!

 

Thanks Mat. I think I just may look into these?

 

That whole system is just insane.... ly great!

 

Steve wins the Shockingly Well Organized award!