Economical Chip Storage

When I started collecting chips, I stored them by putting each chip into a plastic 2x2 inch "flip". Then, I purchased plastic sheets with pockets to hold 20 of these flips and placed them into 3-ring binders. Pretty soon, I had almost a dozen binders and they were crowding out the books on the bookshelves in our home office.

In the early years of my collecting, I found that I pulled binders off the shelf fairly often to check to see if I had a particular chip, or to insert a new purchase. I filed my chips alphabetically, by casino name, and one of the problems using the binders is that I would have to shift chips around periodically when I needed to insert a new chip. I recently decided to do away with binders and remove the clutter from my bookshelves, while finding an easier way to file chips.

I wanted to file my chips in boxes or drawers, each chip still contained in a flip. I also wanted some type of drawer unit that would fit on a shelf underneath a computer table I have next to my desk, with only 13 inches of clearance. I looked at some metal drawer cabinets at The Container Store that would work, but the price was right around $100. I wanted something cheaper to start out with to see if I would be happy with this filing system.

I picked up a plastic 3 drawer storage unit at Wal-Mart for either 8 or 12 bucks (I forget). I cut some 1-3/4 inch strips to separate rows of chips from some pieces of 3/32" stiff black plastic that Cassidy Frames ships with their chip frame inserts.
Each drawer holds about 450-475 chips in double pocket plastic flips. Inside dimensions of drawers are 12 inches wide by about 12-3/4 inches deep by a little less than 2-1/2 tall.

This particular unit is made by Sterlite and seems pretty stable, although I don't have all three drawers full yet. They make a smaller unit with drawers 8-1/2 wide and 11 deep, but it doesn't seem as strong.