Flats, drawers and cabinets
Updated
Above thumbnail size, specimens live in trays inside drawers, and the cabinet around them is the largest single conservation choice a collector makes.
How larger specimens live
A specimen sits in an individual tray, the trays sit in a flat or directly in a drawer, and the drawer sits in a cabinet.
The tray is what makes it work: it keeps the specimen, its label and its number together, and lets one piece be lifted out without disturbing anything else.
The flat
A shallow tray of standard footprint, subdivided into compartments, that holds a group of specimens and can be carried as a unit.
It is the trading unit of the hobby as well as a storage one: material is bought and sold by the flat at shows.
The dealer's flat is usually cardboard, which is fine for weeks and wrong for decades. Material bought in a flat should be rehoused, and that is a task with a deadline rather than a someday.
Drawers
Shallow rather than deep. A deep drawer invites stacking, and stacked specimens abrade each other.
Full enough that trays do not slide, which means partitioning rather than filling.
Not so heavy that the drawer is hard to open: stone is dense, and a large drawer of cabinet specimens is genuinely heavy. Heavy material goes in low drawers, for the cabinet's sake and the collector's.
The cabinet is a chemical decision
This is where the section earns its place. A closed wooden cabinet concentrates the acids the wood emits, and oak is the worst offender. Adhesives, varnishes and sealants add to it.
Carbonate specimens in an old oak cabinet will effloresce, and the cabinet will be blamed last.
The practical answers: metal cabinets, which are inert; sealed or barrier-lined wood; acid-free liners between wood and specimens; and air exchange rather than a tightly sealed drawer.
A handsome antique wooden cabinet is the thing collectors often want and it needs lining before it holds anything reactive.