General Forum

So over the holiday break my wife said "you know, you have all these boxes and cases your store your cards in...we should see about finding you a nice piece of furniture to store your cards in." I didn't really want something for ALL of my cards, but in particular I wanted something for all the ones in my PC: Cal Ripken, Christian Pulisic, Clint Dempsey, Caps players, pros that played at Wake Forest...the ones that mean more to me.

We spent some time online looking at various apothecary cabinets and card catalogs for something that suited what I was looking for. Didn't really see anything I loved. Not deep enough. Not tall enough. Wrong drawer sizes. Would they fit toploaders? One touch? What about my graded cards? Nothing seemed a good fit.

Then I decided to see if there were any Amish furniture places that might build a custom piece. I have an Amish kitchen table and chairs that I had made when I first bought my house that I absolutely love. And in looking around, I stumbled across this:

http://www.amishfurnitureconnections.com/entertainment-furniture/storage-racks/graded-card-storage-cabinet-p-2890.html

Ok, not exactly what I was looking for, but it was a start. So I emailed the owners about what I was looking for and we eventually made the 1 1/2 hour drive to Culpepper, VA to meet with them and walk through what I wanted. We gave them a number of photos we had pulled offline for reference, similar to this. 

I didn't want individual drawers, because I was worried it'd be a hassle pulling a drawer at a time out finding the right spot in a collection to add a card I'd gotten. I wanted the front to *look* like they were individual drawers, but actually have a single drawer span the whole piece. I wanted long rows front to back that would hold a card of any type, all the way up to graded cards. I don't have a ton of graded cards but I hate having my Pulisic graded cards in one or two boxes and the rest in my special cases. Also, I didn't want any dividers running side-to-side breaking up the rows (like you see in the link to the graded chest above). Seemed unnecessary and I had things I could use for that, if needed.

I (and, more importantly, my wife) wanted something taller. She didn't want a short, squat piece. Had to be 5 or 6 feet. Weathered look. Cherry finish to match the rest of our house. Etc. BTW, should note we hadn't really decided where this thing was going to go. We had a variety of options, but she said "let's just build the thing we both want, and then we'll figure it out."

And so after some back and forth, we had what we wanted. Eight drawers, with a pull-out set in the middle that I could when I had a bunch of cards I was filing and needed someplace to sit them, or jot something down, or put my phone when I'm pulling cards for a trade...whatever. Each drawer will have 6 rows for cards. Anything from a penny sleeve to PSA and Beckett cases. The actual width off the drawer -- and the whole piece -- is driven by the size needed for six rows. I don't care whether it's 30" or 31", I do care that each row is 3 3/8ths of an inch wide.

The dividers are low enough that you can shuffle through cards and see what they are without having to pull them completely out of the row. Each drawer will have four "boxes" on the front to give it the look we wanted. Cherry finish with this cool, bandsaw distress on it that makes it look worn and weathered.

Below are sketches of a rough drawer diagram and a rough diagram for the piece. I'll try to see if I can get pics along the way as they build it. Should take about 3 months. And obviously I'll share pics of the final product.

Thank you for sharing.  Good luck on your project.

Sounds kind of awesome. Enjoy.

v3

Beautiful idea and not something I haven't thought of though I have been looking for one already made.  I do caution you that the drawers as you have described will be quite heavy if full of cards, especially in top loaders.  The TV cabinet I converted for a similar purpose has six drawers that hold just over 500 cards each (3 rows / drawer of 170 cards in each).  Even they are heavy when filled; I would not want to imagine if they were the full width of the TV and held over 1,000 cards.

I am sure you will enjoy it.

Yeah, this came up with the builder and was a big point of emphasis for me. The drawer slides they're using are pretty heavy duty and can hold 200 pounds per drawer. I pulled the heaviest cards I could find from my collection and a completely full drawer of the heaviest cards would come to less than 100 pounds, half of what the drawer slides can hold. So I should be good there. Would have added about $1,000 to go up to the next weight of drawer slides, which is 500 pounds per drawer.

Congrats on the great find! I found one a number of years ago and refurbished it.  I store all of my Topps cards from 1952-79 in semi-rigid card holders which fit nicely insdie the drawers. I have been in search of another one for quite some time since this one is filled up.

My concern was not whether the drawer could handle the weight but more if you want to take the drawers out so as to move the cabinet. 

scrubeenie - exactly what I wish to find.

I've always thought about map drawers.  I can somehow lay out the cards flat, pull open a drawer and see a few years of my team collection in each drawer. I have a metal map drawer in my work shop but it's not big enough or as nice as wood.

That's a great idea, hadn't thought of that!  The search is on!

Wow!!! What a neat idea!! Both the Apothecary cabinet and Map drawers would be awesome. If only I had the ability to build one myself.