Hello Jordan, and welcome to Conch-L.

We are glad to have you and your idea for storage of minis.  I use some
former medical supplies for my mini storage too. One time my pharmacist
(a swim buddy of my husband's too, which may have helped) gave me four
boxes of expired sample medications with the stipulation that I swear on
my shell collection that I would bring back and dump the pills in his
trash and soak off the labels. Which I did.  They are great containers
for micros, minis and gelatin capsules.  Each box holds 72 bottles with
plugs. Each bottle is about about 2" long, including plug, and 5/8"
diameter. The good-quality corrugated cardboard boxes are each fitted
out with egg-crate dividers making a compartment for each bottle. (Yeah,
I know...get more...can't! The pharmacist friend moved to Iowa.)

I store my tiny stuff taxonomically in these cartons and bottles,
tucking little 2" tall tags cut from index cards bearing the names for
the families into the beginning compartment of each family for ready
reference. This way I can move the tag along as I need to expand space
allotted to a family.  I store the in-use bottles upside down, with
shell number on the glass bottom. Empties are stored cap up.

I used to cut a piece of self-stick mailing label to make a label on the
side of each bottle. Now I am just sticking a plain paper label in the
bottle because those old labels come loose after time.  Speaking of
which, does anyone have any great ideas of what to use for stick-on
labels? Every kind I have encountered that is peel-and-stick gives up
after a few years and floats off.

Also, pens...a lot has been said, but I didn't see my favorite
mentioned.  Although Sanford Sharpies with Ultra Fine Points are super
for a lot of uses...they are the one pen I know of (that is readily
available) that will write on the back of photos without smearing, or
worse, coming off on or engraving the photo image...for me they don't
seem fine enough for numbering shells.  And those expensive technical
pens! I have a bunch of them in drawers, clogged, broken or otherwise
useless. They need forever care and delicate handling; there may be some
newer ones that are better, and more FOOL proof, but I haven't
checked...because I found a great product available in SOME office and
art supply stores: my favorite is a Pigma Micron soft point pen with
"micro pigment ink for waterproof and fade proof fine lines." They come
in various thicknesses but the smallest and most adapted to attractive
and inconspicuous shell numbering (for those who are not going to
invisible ink) is the .005 tip, which gives a 20mm line width. Only
thing is, if you find the things, you should buy a lot of them because
the .005 tip is hard to find, and you must send me one of your lot every
time as tribute! The last I found were in an office supply store in
Jacksonville, shopping with Char Lloyd. And I am about out.

Ok, enough of my "secrets"!

Lynn Scheu
Louisville KY
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