how/where do you store your collection?

[sauroid]

this topic is aimed basically towards the heavy collectors/those who acquire ALL the figures of certain lines and brands or just for the sake of completeness.
not everyone has the facility and space to display all their figures so how and where do you put away all the figures in your collection that arent put on shelves? im fascinated actually at the amount of figures some of the members of this forum have. speaking for myself, i have amassed practically thousands (some in doubles and multiples for the purpose of trading) of items for both prehistoric and modern animal figures (as well as kaiju/other monster figures) that i have acquired all my life and i am running out of space.

[Shonisaurus]

I am placing my dinosaurs in the library of my living room where I am going to vacate the books that I am going to give to a cousin of mine at the request of my father who is going to inherit them. I am going to use my entire house to house my extensive collection. I live alone and sincerely dinosaurs give me a lot of company regardless of whether they are plastic, resin or vinyl figures in my case.

I can always read the books in the Municipal Libraries whoever I want, so I am going to get rid of all the books except those on paleontology and dinosaurs. The rest of my house will be occupied by dinosaurs and other different animals.

[CityRaptor]

That's nice and all, but the question was about figures not on display.

As for me? I got all my figures on display, but when I sell off figures due to various reasons, I usually store them in one of these:
https://www.ikea.com/nl/en/p/malm-chest-of-3-drawers-white-20403562/
Also did the same with certain accesories, like humans, armor and capture gear when I still had more Jurassic Park and Dino Riders figures.

[Duna]

I am placing my dinosaurs in the library of my living room where I am going to vacate the books that I am going to give to a cousin of mine at the request of my father who is going to inherit them. I am going to use my entire house to house my extensive collection. I live alone and sincerely dinosaurs give me a lot of company regardless of whether they are plastic, resin or vinyl figures in my case.

I can always read the books in the Municipal Libraries whoever I want, so I am going to get rid of all the books except those on paleontology and dinosaurs. The rest of my house will be occupied by dinosaurs and other different animals.

That's a very interesting approach. I have done the same, the only physical books for me at home are the ones related to dinosaurs and prehistoric life, and I don't have much, about 10 or so. I read now only on ebook.
My other books are at my parents'.

I don't like to store my figures, so about 98% is on view. I only have a cardboard box or two with some AAA rubber figures from the 80s, the Hong Kong copies of Marx, and appart from that, the collections I have made "double" for my 2 kids to inherit in the future: Invicta, Linde, UKRD, Danone, El Cigarral ... I have one copy on display and the other one, stored. I use simple cardboard boxes to put them in, they are easy to take out and to take to other place to have a look at when you want. If they are not on view, it doesn't matter where do you store them in.

[CityRaptor]

Oh yeah. Of course I used boxes made of cardboard, too. Still do for some things.

Although I'm not sure if giving these vintage figures to your offspring is a good idea @Duna . You should probably check how safe for children they are first.

[Duna]

Although I'm not sure if giving these vintage figures to your offspring is a good idea @Duna . You should probably check how safe for children they are first.

No, hehe, don't worry, they are for them to "inherit" when I die (or when I'm old or not interested in them any more).  That's why I tried to make most collections "double", for each one.  They know perfectly the vintage dinosaurs are "toxic" and they can recognize even new "chinasaurs from the 80s" even if they haven't seen them before, children are very intelligent when classifiying objects. They are only 5 years old and they have a few of their own Safari, Collecta and Papo children safe figures (the ones I discard, as I only have on display ONE figure per species, the most accurate one or which I like the most). They are very well behaved (as I was) and have understood that damaging the figures will mean they will be like that forever, and they love them a lot so they could play with them when they are older, as I did with mine (which I still have). So all toys are very well looked after (they have had them since they were 4) and with no bitten marks and no paint scuffs.
They know the names and correct pronunciation of lot of species, I've taught them which are dinosaurs and which not, even the period they lived in, so imagine them correcting their father as one day when they were 4, he took a stegosaurus and a tyrannosaurus and made a mock fight ... "DAD!! They didn't live together! Stegosaurus is from the jurassic period, take a triceratops instead!" 

At these age, they don't understand fully the importance of Marx, Linde, Ajax, Starlux, Invicta and other collections I have on display, like the PNSO. They only thing they know is when their grandparents were little, those were the figures children had to play with. They understand children now are luckier to have such wonderful updated and coloured rubber figures like they have. I will like to teach them about the vintage ones, when they can read that wonderful book about Prehistoric Playsets, but this when they grow up.
They are allowed to handle all of them if they ask me to, but they don't, sometimes, very few times, they do ask: Can I have a look at that figure? And I show it to them. But they have no interest in them. They could open all the vitrines and take the figures out, but they don't. They know those are the figures to display and are not toys.

By the way, I have recalled some of the boxes I use to store and display some of the smaller figures, so they can be "seen" and stored at the same time, and are cheap and easy to handle. I use the 2 larger. The largest one is a decent size. These are from Ikea, in the bath storing section:

[Cretaceous Crab]

My wife and I just fight a lot over shelf space in the house. LOL, j/k. 

I generally only display my nicer high-end or vintage figures and the ones I repaint. The rest are kept in an airtight storage bin that can be taken out for play time.

[UK]

I've sold probably 90% of the figures I have owned. This frees up space and funding for new figures. There is a core of those I have kept, when not on display they reside in some heavy duty boxes in my wardrobe. I keep my collection to a maximum volume, hence my bent towards the smaller figures.

[Halichoeres]

I don't like to have things in boxes if I don't have to, but sometimes I have to. I avoid bubble wrap after it seems to have accelerated plastic degradation, so these days I generally wrap them in old (clean!) towels or other cloth items and put them in cardboard boxes or plastic totes. Another tip: for theropods, store them feet upward--if you store them on their sides the weight of other figures can warp their legs together.

[Sim]

Compared to other members I don't have a lot of prehistoric figures, only the ones I really like, and I'm thinking of getting rid of a few.  However since I'm responding to this thread I'll share what I do with my figures.  I don't have anywhere to display them.  I store them all in plastic containers with bubble wrap under the figures.  The plastic containers are then kept in a cupboard, this protects them from dust and light.

@Halichoeres, I have never encountered bubble wrap accelerating plastic degradation.  Could you share your experience of this?  Before using bubble wrap I used towels instead, but I found that non-white towels could cause colour to transfer from them onto a figure.

[Faelrin]

Well I have some misc Schleich and Carnegie figures in a wooden toy bin or something in my father's room, just from the lack of display space. My old (feels weird to say this) hasbro JW figures are in a cardboard box buried under other boxes because I just don't have much storage space, and I'm not really too interested in displaying them alongside my other stuff for perhaps obvious reasons. I guess the only reason I haven't sold them or given them all to my nieces yet is nostalgia now I guess.

[Gothmog the Baryonyx]

Well, with a couple exceptions my dinosaur collection isn't stored anywhere, it's all on display. But my Star Wars Black Series collection is entirely packed away in a variety of different sorts of storage boxes, and my Doctor Who action figures (but not figurines).

[Halichoeres]

@Halichoeres, I have never encountered bubble wrap accelerating plastic degradation.  Could you share your experience of this?  Before using bubble wrap I used towels instead, but I found that non-white towels could cause colour to transfer from them onto a figure.

After grad school there was a two-year stretch where I was doing temporary work and moving a lot, and during that time I had most of my collection in storage, mostly in bubble wrap. The figures were in boxes or totes indoors in closets or under a bed, and when I pulled them out several of them had acquired the tackiness that some of us have come to dread. Most of the offenders were early CollectA/Procon, and I suspect that they underwent a reaction with the plastic wrap.

Color transfer from towels isn't something I'd considered; luckily I'm using white ones!

[sauroid]

@Halichoeres, I have never encountered bubble wrap accelerating plastic degradation.  Could you share your experience of this?  Before using bubble wrap I used towels instead, but I found that non-white towels could cause colour to transfer from them onto a figure.

After grad school there was a two-year stretch where I was doing temporary work and moving a lot, and during that time I had most of my collection in storage, mostly in bubble wrap. The figures were in boxes or totes indoors in closets or under a bed, and when I pulled them out several of them had acquired the tackiness that some of us have come to dread. Most of the offenders were early CollectA/Procon, and I suspect that they underwent a reaction with the plastic wrap.

Color transfer from towels isn't something I'd considered; luckily I'm using white ones!

i had the same issue with an old CollectA Iguanodon. had a sticky oily substance after pulling it out of its plastic ziplocked bag after a few years of being stored away.