What's the best way to store minfigures?

[ziljin]

I have become serious about army building about 2 months ago, and now I have around 600 minfigures and another 100 on its way. Right now they are just in a box with weapons and shields and capes on.

Is that alright? Will keeping the weapons and shields in cause stress to the hands and weaken/break them? Right now I leave them in for convenience when I make my army videos on youtube.

I did order like 200 minfigures from bricklink (half arrived already) and 50 from ebay so I got lots of these tiny bags. Should I use them to store the minfigures instead of them all mashed together in a box? And will the trapped air have any affect on them?

I might be getting a bigger room soon, so I might just display as many as I can. But my current plan is to buy 100-200 castle minfigiures off of bricklink until they run out of the ones I want. I am sure I will run out of display space real soon.

[Follows Closely]

Why have so many if you are not going to display them?

[Cy-Gor]

Why have so many if you are not going to display them?

Do you have build instructions for those displays?

[Follows Closely]

Do you have build instructions for those displays?

They are not mine, but aren't they are nice.

1. Buy a sheet of plywood or particle board.
   
2. Drill many holes.
   
3. Insert many of into the holes.
   

Edited August 16, 2011 by Follows Closely

[1980-Something-Space-Guy]

I have become serious about army building about 2 months ago, and now I have around 600 minfigures and another 100 on its way. Right now they are just in a box with weapons and shields and capes on.

Is that alright? Will keeping the weapons and shields in cause stress to the hands and weaken/break them? Right now I leave them in for convenience when I make my army videos on youtube.

I did order like 200 minfigures from bricklink (half arrived already) and 50 from ebay so I got lots of these tiny bags. Should I use them to store the minfigures instead of them all mashed together in a box? And will the trapped air have any affect on them?

I might be getting a bigger room soon, so I might just display as many as I can. But my current plan is to buy 100-200 castle minfigiures off of bricklink until they run out of the ones I want. I am sure I will run out of display space real soon.

Not the best solution if you're interested in displaying the guys, but I do find it's the best way to store them if you just don't have space to display them, want to keep them assembled, protected from dust and UV, and want a space efficient solution. I use these and put the figs in their baggies stading in a line in each compartment. I can store around 120 figs per case, and considering this, they're not so expensive. I do keep their accesories separate, but the figs are protected I haven't found a similar solution for keychains though. Hope this helps!

Edited August 16, 2011 by johnnyvgoode

[Vindicare]

Not the best solution if you're interested in displaying the guys, but I do find it's the best way to store them if you just don't have space to display them, want to keep them assembled, protected from dust and UV, and want a space efficient solution. I use these and put the figs in their baggies stading in a line in each compartment. I can store around 120 figs per case, and considering this, they're not so expensive. I do keep their accesories separate, but the figs are protected I haven't found a similar solution for keychains though. Hope this helps!

On the same idea as he, I was going to suggest one of the bigger plastic cases the like that hold/organizes beads and such. You could load them up by faction, maybe 2-3 per slot, depending on the size case you buy.

[Big Cam]

I keep all my collectable minifig's in their own 2x3 ziploc bag. You can buy like 500 on amazon for less than $10.

Like so.

[Mythos]

Well this is how my husband stores his figures before he makes factions with them:

his minifig faction building area (this has changed):

once he starts organising factions:

and how he stores his factions:

and where he keeps his current factions hes working on:

[Big Cam]

Wow, and I thought I had a lot of minifig's.

[vmln8r]

I think this is what Follows Closely was talking about earlier in the thread (not mine):

[Stacy_ToT-LUG]

I too have been struggling with how to store our vast population of minifigs, thank you all for the great ideas and images. Now to start organizing!

[Vindicare]

Mythos, third picture down, what brand, where did you get those? I don't remember if it says there below your name, are you located in the USA? Those would be perfect for what I'm looking for!

[fred67]

As for storing them with weapons, there was a problem with Castle Battle-packs where the figures came with weapons and shields in hands and the figures would no longer hold them, but the problem was that they weren't FULLY in the hands, so they were applying extra stress.

As long as it's assembled completely then I don't think there's a long term problem storing with the figures holding their items.

[Mythos]

Mythos, third picture down, what brand, where did you get those? I don't remember if it says there below your name, are you located in the USA? Those would be perfect for what I'm looking for!

my Husband pics them up at Walmart for like $3-4 ea. (don't remember what they are called) he likes them cause the 32x32 baseplates fit right inside them with room to spare fore and aft for misc. items.

Edited August 17, 2011 by Mythos

[Zeya]

I keep all my collectable minifig's in their own 2x3 ziploc bag. You can buy like 500 on amazon for less than $10.

For my collectible minifigures and licensed figs, I also use 2x3 inch ziploc bags. I got mine from Michaels (USA retail chain) in the section with beads. I just can't bear the thought of them scraping and knocking together, for some reason.

For yellow minifigs, I break apart head, torso, and legs and they get sorted into bins, i.e. sorted by shape/mold like I do with all my other elements (more or less). Although, I do leave hands in the arms and I don't take legs off either. I like to mix and match figures for MOCs, and I especially like stacking and sorting the heads to see what face printings I have. I don't know why I don't break apart my collectible minifigures like that; I guess I just have a mental stumbling block and feel they should stay whole.

Edited August 17, 2011 by Zeya

[Darkdragon]

my Husband pics them up at Walmart for like $3-4 ea. (don't remember what they are called) he likes them cause the 32x32 baseplates fit right inside them with room to spare fore and aft for misc. items.

The brand is Sterilite and those containers (i have many of various sizes and they are my favorite) are actually discontinued. Only Walmart has them now and once they are gone they won't come back (though I can't say how many the walmart warehouses have which may be tens of thousands).

Original topic: I store all figures as parts, sorted by color/print style.

Edited August 17, 2011 by darkdragon

[Mythos]

The brand is Sterilite and those containers (i have many of various sizes and they are my favorite) are actually discontinued. Only Walmart has them now and once they are gone they won't come back (though I can't say how many the walmart warehouses have which may be tens of thousands).

Original topic: I store all figures as parts, sorted by color/print style.

my Husband keeps his minifig heads in containers like that too, but on ones he has a bunch of he uses those large peanut butter container like this:

[Vindicare]

my Husband keeps his minifig heads in containers like that too, but on ones he has a bunch of he uses those large peanut butter container like this:

That's a lot of angry Vikings! Would make for cool medieval Calvary troops.

[ziljin]

Hm I definitely would not want to separate them. I guess I will do the little bag thing since I should get many of them from mass bricklink ordering. most of them use those ziploc bags. But those cases + baseplate is a cool system mythos. And wow so many lego containers dedicated to army building!

[WhiteFang]

For myself, I rarely separate the accessories away from the minifigures and I tend to place them inside plastic storage boxes or any boxes that is deem lasting and durable for me to keep the dust away. I also do use ziplock bags to organise the accessories too.

This is an old image which was taken a few years back. Perhaps, I should take a few more of mine newer boxes for storing those minifigs of mine.

[1980-Something-Space-Guy]

It all depends on your interests. I, for instance, collect minifigures, so I don't like their hands being damaged by putting accessories on them, unless I have repeats. I have had some ugly experiences, damaging both accessories and hands

Edited August 17, 2011 by johnnyvgoode

[ziljin]

A question about using bags to store the minfigures.

Will that have any negative effect on the minfigures? like the trapped air inside, or lack of ventilation?

EDIT:

Also what causes minfig heads to get stuck to helmets?

Edited August 20, 2011 by ziljin

[1980-Something-Space-Guy]

A question about using bags to store the minfigures.

Will that have any negative effect on the minfigures? like the trapped air inside, or lack of ventilation?

EDIT:

Also what causes minfig heads to get stuck to helmets?

I've had some figs stored in bags for around 7 years without being opened. So far, no negative effects. As far as I know, the main enemies of minifigures are UV light, which causes the infamous yellowing, heat, which also damages plastic, and oil, that can damage stickered torsos. Quite frankly, if storing them in a bag causes a negative effect over them, I doubt there is any method of keeping them safe...

Edit:

I have that problem only with old figures with no hollow studs. My guess has always been that it's a problem from the old design, but I don't know for sure. I haven't had this problem ever with the new heads.

Edited August 21, 2011 by johnnyvgoode

[ziljin]

Okay I will store them in bags with confidence. When you put them in the bags do you just stick them in or do you try to remove the air too? Interesting about the solid stud heads. How would I go about removing the ones that are stuck? Or its impossible without breaking the helmet? I guess I should remove all the solid stud heads then. Well at least for the closed helmets, hoods, and other hard to remove headgear.

EDIT: Playing around with some minfigures. It appears the helmets that are stuck on the heads is because the head is too loose to stick to the torso as you attempt to remove the helmet. At least that happened to of them.

Edited August 21, 2011 by ziljin

[Mythos]

Okay I will store them in bags with confidence. When you put them in the bags do you just stick them in or do you try to remove the air too? Interesting about the solid stud heads. How would I go about removing the ones that are stuck? Or its impossible without breaking the helmet? I guess I should remove all the solid stud heads then. Well at least for the closed helmets, hoods, and other hard to remove headgear.

EDIT: Playing around with some minfigures. It appears the helmets that are stuck on the heads is because the head is too loose to stick to the torso as you attempt to remove the helmet. At least that happened to of them.

My husband and I have experienced this problem before with both new and old heads, it usually happens when the head gets too loose to adhere to the neck part, best way to remove helmets from heads is either find a strong connection neck part or try to remove the helmet at an angle by pushing the helmet to the side and pulling on it.

Edited August 21, 2011 by Mythos