Project Complete! Coin Cabinet!

My birthday was just last month, and for a gift my wonderful wife told me she wanted to get me a nice coin cabinet! I had been looking at ones for sale online, but could never bring myself to pull the trigger due to price - the sizes I was interested in seemed to start at around $550 - so we decided to buy materials and I could make one myself, instead.

Planning the project took a little while since I wanted enough room to store all my coins and still have plenty left over for future use. I figured 10 or 12 trays, maybe 40 coins per tray would give me lots of growing room. I also wanted to take the time making sure every detail was thought out so I wouldn't run into any unforeseen mistakes halfway through.

Off to the local lumber store! I had fun looking at all the $$$ exotic furniture-grade hardwoods for sale. Mahogany is of course the gold standard, but it is also very expensive; plus I kind of wanted a darker wood to contrast with the felt/coins. I ended up going with walnut.

The next few weeks were spent cutting the boards to size, planing, sanding, drilling nearly 500 holes, gluing, nailing, putty, router edges, sanding again, assembling the trays, last sanding, finishing, installing the tray knobs, and then letting the box and trays air dry with a fan for about a week or so.

In the meantime I had ordered a copious quantity of die-cut felt circles of the correct size. I ended up making 10 trays with 40 holes 1.625" in diameter and 2 trays with holes 2.125" in diameter for larger coins, medals, etc.

The felt circles shipped from overseas and I was disappointed that the color chart on the website did not exactly match the color in reality. I wanted red and what I got was more purplish-maroon. I may be getting a replacement set but, in the meantime, I couldn't wait the couple weeks it took to ship and just used the ones I had. They're not too bad, I guess. I couldn't find 2.125" felt circles so just ordered 2" instead; those are more the vibrant red I was looking for.

Today I finally finished it! It was a fun woodworking project and I really enjoyed making it all from scratch. I couldn't be happier how it all turned out (felt color aside) and will have a lot of fun filling it up with new coins!

Photos: (Please excuse the messy kitchen table...)

The finished product!





Bottom 2 trays are the larger sized:





The trays are riding on 1/4"x1/4" strips I ripped from some of the leftover walnut boards. A couple trays of Roman coins:





Tray of non-ancient coins:





Here is a tray of Roman coins that has been removed from the case. All the trays are made from one-piece walnut boards:



Everything is 100% walnut.

Now the task will be to catalog my entire collection and put little label slips in with each coin. I'm thinking of assigning a personal collection catalog number to each coin and having a binder with pages containing each coin's information - which will be a lot more than I could put even on a 2x2 flip insert. I've done a couple coins already, but right now I'm really still trying to think exactly how I will want to organize everything.

Best birthday gift ever? I'd say so! I feel very blessed to have such a thoughtful wife.

Feel free to post you own thoughts & comments!

 

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Outstanding job! Absolutely stunning piece of art. I applaud you.

 

Wonderful job, I love it.

 

Indeed an endeavor of love and craftmanship worthy of the highest level.

Magnifico!

 

Fantastic.

 

You are extremely talented. Your coin cabinet displays exceptional skills as a cabinetmaker.

 

TMMan,
Beautifully done!
You should be very please with this outcome.
J.T.

 

Nice job and what everyone else said. Ironic, I am repairing an antique cabinet and stopped for a minute to look at CT. Nice timing.

 

Yes that is without a doupt a beautiful piece of wood working!

How many hours do you have in her? Top of the mark craftsmanship.
I myself have come full circle in how to house as well store the collection. Im not and never been a slab type guy...I like holding and in a slab your holding plastic...
Ive even gone back to albums again as you can see more than 1 coin at a time.
This is perfect...and I hope you enjoy it for many years....

 

Wow @The Meat man , that is a thing of beauty. You've demonstrated some masterful skill there my friend!

I love the way that the variations in grain and coloring distinguish the face of each tray from the others. It looks great!

 

Thanks everyone!
My dad is what you might call a hobbyist woodworker and we enjoyed doing little woodworking projects growing up. He has all the tools that I don't, so that makes it easier for me.

@Paddy54 I don't really know, if I had to guess I'd say maybe 20 to 25? I'd probably be able to do it in less time now having built one, but it still is a lot of work, especially the sanding and finishing. It's a lot of surface area!

 

That’s a stunning piece!

 

For cataloging I have a sheet with a photo of a known specimen and then a photo of mine. Included is a description. The sheet is referenced to the coin. I print them and put them in sheet protectors and into a three ring binder.

 

I really like your coin cabinet. I was going to build one myself, but my lazy bone told me to find some other way to store my coins.
I don't know how collectors store their coins, but I found a way that isn't hard and I don't have to spend a lot of money.
I keep coins that I collected over the years in a 2X3 plastic container. I have coin boxes and I keep all of the sets (cents, nickels, coins, etc) filed together. All boxes have an identifying code listing all the coins in each box. All of my gold coins are kept in the boxes they were shipped in as well as the "display" box that hold the coins. I didn't start collecting until 2009. Starting 2009, I stored all 2009 coins and sets are kept in a box and are cataloged. I keep the catalog for each year in a binder with documentation in plastic sheet protectors. I keep a log of each purchase for the year in the binder, on my computer, and in my safe. I've done that since 2009. As the years progressed, I found better ways to keep up with my purchases.
I have a box for each year and all the documentation. It has been fun and hard work to keep up with them. I don't buy many gold coins due to the cost. Maybe 1 a year.

 

Wow excellent work!

 

Nice work @The Meat man. I like how, there is room above each tray, in case you have any thick coins.
If you're going to order new fabric inserts, I recommend velvet, rather than wool felt. From everything I've read, velvet has much less friction than wool felt. I've read, that wool felt can damage coins, over time, as the trays are slid in and out, because the coins move along the scratchy fibers of the wool felt, causing friction and wear.
You can search Coin Talk, and the other ancient coin forum, for information about wool felt, and its effect on ancient coins. I've posted a few times, on 1 forum or the other, about wool felt.

 

Are you going to market it? Superb Job!

 

Congratulations!
I always wished I had such a cabinet.

 

Very nice cabinet meatman. Love the Walnut.

 

What an amazing (wife) piece of craftsmanship! Hats-off to you, sir. As for the idea of a catalogue, fair warning; I do something like what I think you're describing & it is a seriously limiting factor on getting new coins put away. I do an alphanumeric code (diffetent rulers or eras or blah blah) with straight numbering system for each coin, that goes on the flip w/basic info. Use that to referance a catalogue list of all the coins I have, then a Liber/folio call-out to find a particular coin in a seperate (random order entry) catalogue with a full description of the coin, reference info, where I got it, my thoughts, etc. & a reference to a find any receipts or tickets or whatever from the purchase in another spot. It is excessive, but I can't make myself stop now that that's been the system. If I could do it all over, I would SERIOUSLY streamline the whole thing. Or even do it electronically. Everything is nice & organized & accessible & all, but it takes a long time to get new coins catalogued & put away. The idea was to make it easier on my kids to eventually sell the collection (I can even leave notes to them in the catalogue to make sure they know the valuable coins), but I probably just made a mess that no one (including me?) will ever use. Food for thought