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Project complete! Coin cabinet!


CPK

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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!

IMG_20230318_153535.jpg.f787034897f60aa9665e8469bf93defd.jpg

 

Bottom 2 trays are the larger sized:

IMG_20230318_153546.jpg.4a403b556eb97c072802121fc04972c2.jpg

 

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:

IMG_20230318_153747.jpg.5756058dcf68e937f4e3e482029bcc0c.jpg

 

Tray of non-ancient coins:

IMG_20230318_154117.jpg.cbc8a0b0fa3de0fcf8e815a2ff2e1f89.jpg

 

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

IMG_20230318_153839.jpg.d2f3f209f61b7f9ffb68805915b4f2ad.jpg

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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Holy cow! That looks beautiful!
I would love a cabinet like that. I would love even more to be able to make one myself. Unfortunately, I've never done a lick of woodwork in my life besides a clock that I made in middle school shop haha. 

Kudos to you and happy belated birthday!

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Thanks everyone!

I'm lucky in that my dad also enjoys woodworking, and he has all the tools I don't. Growing up, we children used to have fun making little woodworking projects. 😉 

@Prieure de Sion I don't know, maybe we can talk about an exchange for some of your coins...😜🙂

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That is a really beautiful piece and as someone who is spectacularly useless at DIY I am as much in awe of your skills as the cabinet itself. I particularly like the slight 'lip' that you have created to the trays by having the front of the tray higher than the main body of the tray. I have a Peter Nichols mahogany cabinet, it is a lovely item, but (like most commercial coin cabinets in fairness) each tray is entirely flat and there is very little room between the top of one tray and the bottom of the tray above. Each coin recess has a 6mm clearance which is fine for the vast majority of coins but not for some high relief ancients. In addition, even the slightest warping of a tray over time can cause it to rub against the adjacent tray. These are minor issues, I still love my cabinet and wouldn't dream of changing it for any other storage system, but I have often thought that a little more separation between the trays would be a good thing. You have designed this into your cabinet and given your coins some headroom. Very well done.

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3 hours ago, Roerbakmix said:

Very nicely and professionally done! I’ve been playing with the thought to make a cabinet myself (I have some woodworking experience). Could you share some of your steps, and tips&tricks?

Sure, I'd be happy to share anything you want to know about it!

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6 hours ago, CPK said:

Sure, I'd be happy to share anything you want to know about it!

Very kind of you!

1) the drawers appear to be solid wood: how did you make the holes? I presume your drill had a centering part (central drill / pointed thing). I planned to use two thin sheets of wood, make holes in one of them and then laminate the two sheets, but your solution might be better

2) i'm a bit worried using 'new' wood, as I've read online that new wood releases more gas / creates a potential harmful climate for your coins

3) same for glue: did you use a specific type of glue? 

4) can you show the drawer mechanism? I presume its wood on wood? I've used that before, and (perhaps a tip), opening/closing them will be smoother when you use a candle and rub this on the places that contact each other. 

Thanks

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15 minutes ago, Roerbakmix said:

Very kind of you!

1) the drawers appear to be solid wood: how did you make the holes? I presume your drill had a centering part (central drill / pointed thing). I planned to use two thin sheets of wood, make holes in one of them and then laminate the two sheets, but your solution might be better

2) i'm a bit worried using 'new' wood, as I've read online that new wood releases more gas / creates a potential harmful climate for your coins

3) same for glue: did you use a specific type of glue? 

4) can you show the drawer mechanism? I presume its wood on wood? I've used that before, and (perhaps a tip), opening/closing them will be smoother when you use a candle and rub this on the places that contact each other. 

Thanks

 

1 - The trays are solid, each made from a single piece of wood, about 10" wide and 16" long and planed down to about 1/2" thick. For the holes I used a 1 /58" Forstner bit in a drill press. Using the press I was able to set a bottom limit on the depth, so the holes are all a uniform depth (about 1/4", maybe a bit less). For laying out the hole pattern, I cut a piece of thin plywood to the exact size of the trays, figured out how to evenly space everything, and marked out the center point of each hole. Then I clamped my template onto each tray and drilled a tiny 1/16" pilot hole at each centerpoint. The Forstner bits have a sharp pointed guide, so it was easy then to drill them out (although quite time-consuming!) I think it's a simpler way to do it than laminating two boards (which I had also considered) but that could work too.

2 - I guess "green" wood might be detrimental but any furniture lumber you buy should have been dried/seasoned, so that wouldn't be a concern for me. As far as what wood to use, I tried to find out if there were any big no-no's and pretty much all I could find was that I should stay away from oak (which makes sense, oak chips were once used to tan animal hides!). Mahogany is always given as the best, but I think walnut is fine and probably most other stable hardwoods too. (Maple, Cherry, etc.)

3 - Nothing special - I think it was Gorilla Wood glue?

4 - Sure! Yes it's wood-on-wood and like you, I also thought maybe I'd need to apply a bit of wax to help the trays run smoother; but honestly they have been really smooth right from the start. (sanding up to 400 grit probably helped too.) Here is a picture of how I did it. The tray runners are 1/4" x 1/4" walnut strips ripped from leftover boards and glued in place:

IMG_20230319_134917.jpg.f782260d81166bf7f732602057d58ada.jpg

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Update! I received a replacement set of felt circles, this time much more the color I had originally wanted. The more vibrant red is perfect IMO, nicely contrasting with the dark wood and highlighting the coins! Much better than the dull brownish maroon felt I had first received.

I've also made some progress with labeling each coin, using archival paper and pen. The information I'm able to include is scant but (as I said in the OP) I'm planning to add a personal collection catalog number on the back of each paper so that you can look up each coin in a binder and get the full information. That project will take some time. 🤔

Anyway, here are some pictures of the new and much-improved look!

This is my "Greek" tray:

IMG_20230407_182535.jpg.c065981ad12728ef66e81148a2807fc8.jpg

And my small Chinese collection:

IMG_20230407_182619.jpg.7ef2848ad2b16cbf381a469b721da9e4.jpg

Here is the basic format I'm using for the labels:

IMG_20230407_182756.jpg.a6d7345b35409ea0a03ec30a3b8debf6.jpg

IMG_20230407_182857.jpg.cbb88110dab0cba016787a541f9c243d.jpg

IMG_20230407_183529.jpg.2c3c9f1217eef31a46d81e3101137612.jpg

I have yet to label my World coin collection.

IMG_20230407_182945.jpg.5b673d293bfe61f5e4623d9e5f567f05.jpg

And to finish things off, here is a tray of Roman coins!

IMG_20230407_183610.jpg.6e56047679a1ac3dfa07dc82c378972f.jpg

So much nicer! I am very pleased with the new color. 😉 

 

 

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1 hour ago, CPK said:

Update! I received a replacement set of felt circles, this time much more the color I had originally wanted. The more vibrant red is perfect IMO, nicely contrasting with the dark wood and highlighting the coins! Much better than the dull brownish maroon felt I had first received.

I've also made some progress with labeling each coin, using archival paper and pen. The information I'm able to include is scant but (as I said in the OP) I'm planning to add a personal collection catalog number on the back of each paper so that you can look up each coin in a binder and get the full information. That project will take some time. 🤔

Anyway, here are some pictures of the new and much-improved look!

This is my "Greek" tray:

IMG_20230407_182535.jpg.c065981ad12728ef66e81148a2807fc8.jpg

And my small Chinese collection:

IMG_20230407_182619.jpg.7ef2848ad2b16cbf381a469b721da9e4.jpg

Here is the basic format I'm using for the labels:

IMG_20230407_182756.jpg.a6d7345b35409ea0a03ec30a3b8debf6.jpg

IMG_20230407_182857.jpg.cbb88110dab0cba016787a541f9c243d.jpg

IMG_20230407_183529.jpg.2c3c9f1217eef31a46d81e3101137612.jpg

I have yet to label my World coin collection.

IMG_20230407_182945.jpg.5b673d293bfe61f5e4623d9e5f567f05.jpg

And to finish things off, here is a tray of Roman coins!

IMG_20230407_183610.jpg.6e56047679a1ac3dfa07dc82c378972f.jpg

So much nicer! I am very pleased with the new color. 😉 

 

 

Beautiful!

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  • 7 months later...

Hi CPK,

What a wonderful and accomplished finished project you did, congrats. I'm wondering if you'd share how you calculated your cabinet size with your shelves? Did you determine a certain number of shelves, then build your cabinet around the final dimensions of the stacked shelves, or did you go about cabinet size in another method? 

What a great DIY coin cabinet; you have inspired me to create my own. BTW your pics of some construction details were pro quality, no doubt everyone appreciated the time you took to get the optimal angles, shots, etc.

CincyDavid

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