My Sort of Stamp-Sorting Box

 

There are certain things that are fun do do on a windy day. Like flying a kite. Stamp sorting is not one of them. A gust of wind and poof! now everything is worldwide!

If you search online plastic storage boxes, you'll be there for a week. I just happened into our nearby Dollarama store and found one of these little beauties. I removed the sticky label and started using the box right away, but a screenshot (top photo) from this YouTube video shows the box, though it's two years old and I think the box now sells for $4. Inflation. (Also, why are there YouTube videos being made by social media influencers like 'Dollarama Mama' about individual products at Dollarama? Is it any wonder why 720,000 hours are uploaded to YouTube every day? There is NO WAY  that I can ever watch them all.) But I digress...

Advantages of this box:

• nicely-sized compartments that can contain 'most' stamps
• good depth to hold a deep stack of stamps
• two sturdy locks that work even if you're a 'stuffer'
• shallow lift-out tray with one large and three small compartments that are handy for tools, longer strips of stamps like se-tenant or unsealed, hinges and other bits and pieces.
• good overall size which keeps sorting focussed 

There is always the temptation to put stamps in all compartments and never take them out. I intend this to be a 'working' box and not a 'storage for someday' box. Glassines in a larger photo-storage cardboard box are a better way to do this if desired.

I have two larger, shallower boxes but without the lift-out tray. One has removable dividers between each compartment in a row. Both are larger overall. Neither has a lift-out tray.

Druthers:

• dividers lift out but are not individual, therefore a whole row of dividers comes out at once, potentially mixing three or four compartments with their neighbours.