Boxing miniatures

Boxes, not Boxers

In other words, not 28mm Rocky Balboa.  Rather, how do you store your figures?  This is an age-old issue for model-makers and gamers: it's hard to achieve the right balance between the cost of storage solutions, the protection afforded, the efficiency with which items can be packed, their portability and any number of other considerations.  Each gamer probably puts a different emphasis on these various elements, but here's what I do:

The Old-Fashioned Way

 Once upon a time, I made my own storage boxes out of 3mm MDF.  The base is a standard size, though I vary the height depending on the intended contents.  This means that such boxes always stack very well together!

The lid is hinged by sticking a strip of cloth tape over one of the edges.  Make certain that no glue is on the middle line of the cloth tape!  I've coated these boxes with various paints that were bought on sale at local DIY stores; the colour doesn't really matter so cheap, end-of-range paint is just fine.  I stick a couple of strips of foam on the inside to protect the figures.  However, many of my boxes are now somewhat overloaded and the miniatures are in danger of rubbing against each other anyway!  Over the years I must have made nearly 100 of these wooden boxes.

Pro: cheap.  Also, they come in exactly the size you want.
Con: making your own boxes does take quite a bit of work.

The New Way

A few years ago, I discovered a company called Weston Boxes that made simple polypropylene boxes.  Officially, these are sold for storing craft materials, but they work just fine for my purposes.  This is the 'peel off' craft box; it's just the right depth for 28mm miniatures on the common 25mm/1" bases.

These boxes are very simple: they have straight sides (so no wasted space!) and a lift-off lid.  I suppose that I could hold the lid on with a rubber band or two, but I've never found that to be necessary.  These boxes are not as cheap as my home-made ones, but they're still fairly inexpensive.

The A4, A5 and A6 boxes are all rather deeper than the peel-off ones (about 55mm rather than 28mm); this makes them suitable for larger models or multiple-figure bases.  All these products come in different colours, though my preference is for the clear ones - it's easier to find what you're looking for when you can see into the box!

Pro: readily available for no real effort.  Very solid - offers good protection.  Reasonably cheap.
Con: postage costs can be an issue for bulky sets.  Not easy to modify - if you want internal dividers then good luck with sticking those to a polypropylene box!

Afterword

These are the types of box that I use for most of my figures, though some of the largest and most awkwardly-shaped models are kept in an odd assortment of cardboard boxes.  Also, my gaming terrain is kept in much larger cardboard boxes.

There's no right or wrong way to do this (well, actually I can think of several wrong ways to store carefully-detailed models); how do you keep yours?