The invention relates to storage systems for purchased items, for example, screws, nuts, bolts, washers, fasteners and other hardware, and more particularly to a cabinet and drawers for storage, the drawers comprising the individual containers in which the various items are purchased.
In machine shops and home workshops, for example, organizers are known wherein multiple plastic drawers fit into a cabinet of multiple "pigeon-hole" openings. Ordinarily small parts such as screws, nuts, bolts, washers and so on are sorted into various drawers for quick access. In one commercially available system, the drawers are the plastic boxes in which the items are sold and the drawer handles are the tabs from which the boxes are suspended on a display rack. The cabinets are simple rectangular units divided by vertical and horizontal partitions into the pigeon-holes for the drawers. The horizontal dividers define floors to support each inserted box. Of course, the cabinet can accommodate any box of approximately the right size. It is not keyed or constructed to receive only boxes that hold the manufacturer's line of items for which the storage system was designed, and not to hold unauthorized boxes. The cabinet and drawers do not combine to form a unified exclusive marketing arrangement in which a customer completes the system by purchasing the items he needs in the only boxes that can interfit with the cabinet.
Containers for capsules have been proposed that have an outer case into which slides an inner drawer of the container, and the outer case can be affixed to numerous other outer cases of like containers to form a file-like arrangement. How well these would remain together is not clear, particularly if, rather than capsules, heavier hardware items were housed. The inner drawer can be replaced by any similarly sized drawer or box, there being nothing to exclude this replacement. Once the outer cases of these containers have been connected together to form the file-like arrangement, that arrangement, like the previously known organizers first discussed above, is divided by vertical and horizontal partitions, and the horizontal partitions form floors on which any suitably sized box can rest.
In various drawer and cabinet arrangements, cooperating slides on vertical cabinet walls and on drawer side walls guide the drawers in their movement in and out. These are not small storage cabinets for small parts, and the drawers are not the associated boxes in which the parts are retailed. The cooperating slides do not provide a keying means whereby only appropriate boxes can be received in the cabinet openings and employed as drawers therein. Rather, a horizontal floor or projections allow any box of approximately the correct width to rest in the cabinets.
Finally, it has been suggested to form a large carton with side projections to support the carton in a receptacle. The face of this carton opens to permit access so that the carton serves, not as a drawer, but as a shelf. This is described as particularly useful for storing clean linens. The projections on the carton sides are just to provide a means to hold the cartons in place. There is no suggestion of keying the cartons to the receptacles.