https://www.ebay.com/itm/404291953051

HH West Co. was a stationer in Milwaukee that sold Shaw Walker card indexes in the early 1900s.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/166070124473

Vintage Cole Steel 5 Section Letter File Desktop Filing System Tan w/ Label Slot

Item ID: 166070124473 Buy It Now price: $19.90

Your offer: $17.91 Offer expires: May-05 13:29:00 PDT

https://www.ebay.com/itm/275465128542

https://www.ebay.com/itm/256044173366

https://www.bobdornberger.com/about

reply to rogerscrafford at tk

Fine furniture comes at a fine price. 🗃️🤩 I suspect that it won't sell for quite a while and one could potentially make an offer at a fraction of that to take it off their hands. It might bear considering that if one had a practice large enough to fill half or more, then that price probably wouldn't seem too steep for the long term security and value of the contents.

On a price per card of storage for some of the cheaper cardboard or metal boxes you're going to pay about $0.02-0.03 per card, but you'd need about 14 of those to equal this and those aren't always easy to stack and access regularly. With this, even at the full $1,900, you're looking at storage costs of $0.10/card, but you've got a lot more ease of use which will save you a lot of time and headache as more than adequate compensation, particularly if you're regularly using the approximately 20,400 index cards it would hold. Not everyone has the same esthetic, but I suspect that most would find that this will look a lot nicer in your office than 14 cheap cardboard boxes. That many index cards even at discount rates are going to cost you about $825 just in cards much less beautiful, convenient, and highly usable storage.

Even for some of the more prolific zettelkasten users, this sort of storage is about 20 years of use and if you compare it with $96/year for Notion or $130/year for Evernote, you're probably on par for cost either way, but at least with the wooden option, you don't have to worry about your note storage provider going out of business a few years down the line. Even if you go the "free" Obsidian route, with computers/storage/backups over time, you're probably not going to come out ahead in the long run. It's not all apples to apples comparison and there are differences in some of the affordances, but on balance and put into some perspective, it's probably not the steep investment it may seem.

And as an added bonus, while you're slowly filling up drawers, as a writer you might appreciate the slowly decreasing wine/whiskey bottle storage over time? A 5 x 8 drawer ought to fit three bottles of wine or as many fifths of Scotch. It'll definitely accommodate a couple of magnums of Jack Daniels. 🥃🍸🍷My experience also tells me that an old fashioned glass can make a convenient following block in card index boxes.

https://www.librarybureausteel.com/index.html

Library Bureau got spun off of Remington Rand and still sells library products in 2023, though primarily shelving units now. It doesn't list any card catalogs as part of its offerings.

Apparently Cole Steel manufactured typewriters in the 1960s.

Wigent, William David, Burton David William Housel, and Edward Harry Gilman. Modern Filing and How to File: A Textbook on Office System. Rochester, N.Y.: Yawman & Erbe Mfg. Co., 1916. http://archive.org/details/modernfilingate02compgoog.

Original .pdf converted with docdrop.org for OCR annotation on 2023-03-24.

annotation target: urn:x-pdf:3c1f14d64c91cf4b513efa16df4ed90d

Annotations: https://hypothes.is/users/chrisaldrich?q=url%3Aurn%3Ax-pdf%3A3c1f14d64c91cf4b513efa16df4ed90d

https://www.facebook.com/muskegonheritagemuseum/posts/browne-morse-companyin-1907-former-shaw-walker-executive-frank-morse-partnered-w/3640379512645950/

Attached image of the factory has a sign across two sides of the building that repeats the words: "Quality Cabinets Browne-Morse Company"

Frank Morse, a former Shaw-Walker executive, partnered with retired plumbing dealer Richard Browne in 1907 to form the Browne-Morse Company which would manufacture office equipment.

Shaw-Walker. Flexowriter File-Desks. Accessed March 24, 2023. http://archive.org/details/TNM_Flexowriter_File-Desks_-_Shaw-Walker_20171021_0001.

An interesting in-desk filing system for punched cards. Interesting I've not seen anything like this prior for a mini card index maintained in an office desk drawer.

Perhaps such a system wouldn't have been as easily accessible for use on a daily basis versus potentially more portable small systems that could have been transferred from desk to desk (person to person).

How to Run a War Chest Campaign. Rochester, N.Y.: Yawman & Erbe Mfg. Co., 1918. http://archive.org/details/howtorunwarchest00yawm.

Broadly a manual on how to do a big community fundraising effort. Emphasis on furniture and filing systems that could be purchased from the publisher of the piece.

Book Pockets and Date Guides: The Intricacies of a Paper-Based Library System – Smithsonian Libraries and Archives

https://www.ebay.com/itm/155447667554

This Catalog has a page with the various sizes of card catalog boxes available from Cole Steel in 1950s. The external sizes can be useful for placing the individual card sizes for some of these boxes on the secondary market.

They also include approximate card capacities.

https://www.indiamart.com/proddetail/charging-tray-for-library-readers-tickets-14436111112.html

A wooden 5 tray charging tray with lid! This could make a fascinating portable zettelkasten. It has options for both 2"x3" and 3"x5"Cards.

https://www.carrmclean.ca/charging-trays-and-guides.html

http://www.shopbrodart.com/Library-School-Furniture/Adult-and-Teen-Furniture/Computer-Furniture/Card-Catalog-Trays-and-Cabinets/_/Brodart-Wood-Charging-Trays2/

Brodart Full-Length Single Charging Tray<br /> Full- length charging tray with 1,000-card capacity<br /> Price: $96.32

• Adjustable steel follower block with automatic lock
• Felt pads on tray bottom protect desktop
• Full-length charging tray for countertop use
• 4"H x 4"W x 16"D
• Holds 1,000 5"H x 3"W cards
• Includes antimicrobial finish
• Made in the USA

See also: https://hypothes.is/a/ao89RMQmEe2zIvsu3lf6kw for a smaller version

http://www.shopbrodart.com/Library-School-Furniture/Adult-and-Teen-Furniture/Computer-Furniture/Card-Catalog-Trays-and-Cabinets/_/Brodart-Wood-Charging-Trays/?q=tray&s=MToyNTY6NDo6Ojo6OjA6

Brodart Mini Single Charging Tray Mini single charging tray with 600-card capacity More Info Price: $76.76

• Adjustable steel follower block with automatic lock
• Felt pads on tray bottom protect desktop
• Mini charging tray fits on your lap
• 4"H x 4"W x 8"D
• Holds 600 5"H x 3"W cards
• Includes antimicrobial finish
• Made in the USA

This could be used for a modern day Memindex box for portrait oriented 3 x 5" index cards.

https://www.universityproducts.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=card%20catalog

In 2023, University Products offered catalog cards for printing, but no longer offers physical card catalogs.

the phrase "intellectual furniture" is sort of painful here...

Fascinating to see the 8 various types of hole punches different card index systems may have used on their index card filing cabinets.

Advertisement from System, December 1906:

CARD INDEX SYSTEM <br /> If you are using Card Systems, as manufacturers we are in a position to save money for you on these supplies. We make suggestions to anyone desiring to install labor-saving-money- making Card Systems.<br /> Cards supplied for all makes of cabinets.<br /> Write for prices and estimates.<br /> STANDARD INDEX CARD CO.,<br /> 707-09 Arch St., Phila., Pa.

Gunn Desks and filing cabinets

Example advertisement of a wooden office desk with pigeonholes and a small card index box on the desktop as well as a drawer pull with a typewriter sitting on it.

Federal Steel Fixture Company manufactured a variety of steel office furniture including desks, cabinets, lockers, filing cabinets, shelving, and card cabinets.

A fascinating combination of office furniture types in 1906!

The Adjustable Table Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan manufactured a combination table for both telephones and index cards. It was designed as an accessory to be stood next to one's desk to accommodate a telephone at the beginning of the telephone era and also served as storage for one's card index.

Given the broad business-based use of the card index at the time and the newness of the telephone, this piece of furniture likely was not designed as an early proto-rolodex, though it certainly could have been (and very well may have likely been) used as such in practice.

I totally want one of these as a side table for my couch/reading chair for both storing index cards and as a temporary writing surface while reading!

This could also be an early precursor to Twitter!

Folks have certainly mentioned other incarnations: - annotations in books (person to self), - postcards (person to person), - the telegraph (person to person and possibly to others by personal communication or newspaper distribution)

but this is the first version of short note user interface for both creation, storage, and distribution by means of electrical transmission (via telephone) with a bigger network (still person to person, but with potential for easy/cheap distribution to more than a single person)

NoHarm Done Fire and Water may play havoc with your office yet your business need suffer either loss nor delay if you will safeguard your valuable documents and business records by the use of BERGER STEEL OFFICE FURNITURE AND SECTIONAL FILING DEVICES fireproof, water-tight and absolutely indestructible. Unlike the insurance company we do not guarantee to replace your loss-we preserve you from loss. We will send free on request our illustrated book " Steelsects" completely describing our handsome line of steel fire- proof Desks, Tables, Wardrobes, Filing Cabinets, Vault Equipments. Webuild special steel office equipment to order. Write us your requirements and we will furnish estimates. THE BERGER MFG. CO. , Canton, Ohio Specialties: Metal Ceilings, Roofing, Siding New York, Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis. and Fire- proof Construction ...

The Metal Sectional Furniture Company was manufacturing steel filing cabinets in 1906 in Benton Harbor Michigan.

Vintage Library Card Sorter, Gaylord Brothers, A to Z Organizer, Wall Mount

Furniture icon Shaw Walker dead at 95 Published: Aug. 14, 2009, 12:06 p.m.

https://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/color/find-and-explore-colors/paint-colors-by-family#/active/color-wall/section/sherwin-williams-colors/search/waterfall

The width of the drawers of both McDowell & Craig and Steelcase desks is just wide enough to accommodate two rows of 4 x 6" index cards side by side with enough space that one might insert a sizeable, but thin divider between them

I suspect that this is a specific design choice in a world in which card indexes often featured in the office environment of the mid-twenty first century.

Were other manufacturers so inclined to do this? Is there any evidence that this was by design? Did people use it for this? Was there a standard drawer width?

The metal inserts to section off the desk drawer area could have also been used for this sort of purpose and had cut outs to allow for expanding and contracting the interior space.

Keep in mind that some of these tanker desks were also manufactured with specific spaces or areas intended for typewriters or for storing them.

https://www.joann.com/harry-potter-cotton-fabric--quidditch/16028581.html

Bought a yard of this yesterday to reupholster two Steelcase chairs. It's just enough to cover them both.

https://www.hgtv.com/design/decorating/furniture-and-accessories/how-to-refinish-metal-furniture

https://www.worthpoint.com/

https://www.bisley.sk/userfiles/bisley/product/e84b22bf2d7156d048ad076ff74f895d.pdf

https://www.vaultz.com/vaultz-vz01395-black-locking-4x6-index-card-cabinet-double-drawer

These are the type used by various people including Scott P. Scheper.

https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/SILNMAHTL_34484

https://www.newmarkettoday.ca/remember-this/in-its-heyday-office-specialty-employed-400-in-massive-complex-18-photos-1851941

Circa late 2011, he's positing Luhmann had 35,000 cards and not 90,000.

Jules Verne used index cards. Joachim Jungius is said to have had 150,000 cards.

reply on: https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/wzblc9/card_storage/

The smaller 1 to 3 drawer vintage metal card files are readily available on eBay usually between $15 and $40. This isn't bad given how expensive new files can run. Many were made with small fittings that allow them to be stackable. Usually these are sturdy, but light enough for relatively inexpensive shipping.

The larger multi drawer full cabinets can run a couple hundred, but their bigger issue is that they're so large and heavy that they can be in the range of $800 or more to ship anywhere. If you want something like this, your best bet is to try to find something local that you can drive to and pick up locally. If you're into 4x6" cards, double check with the seller to make sure that they'll fit. Often even the somewhat larger cabinets are a 1/4" too short for 4x6 cards, much less the slightly taller tabbed cards (A-Z) you might use for separating sections. I've refinished some old steel furniture like this in the past and it's not easy or cheap, but if someone is desperate...

https://www.ebay.com/b/Index-Card-File-Cabinet-In-Office-Filing-Cabinets/3299/bn_7022123911

Those who might want something new might also look into Bisley which makes some reasonably nice card index files with and without locks, though you might have to order them directly through their New York Offices. https://www.bisley.sk/userfiles/bisley/product/e84b22bf2d7156d048ad076ff74f895d.pdf

https://www.ebay.com/itm/144689012294

Dow indicates in 1924 that 3 x 5" and 4 x 6" are both commonly had in a range of materials the US as well as boxes or cases to keep them in. He does mention that one can also cut their own paper, indicating that this is a possibility.

I was doing some random searches for older material on zettelkasten in German and came across this.

Apparently I've come across this before in a similar context: https://hypothes.is/a/CsgyjAXQEeyMfoN7zLcs0w

The description now makes me want to read it all the more!

This is a book about a box that contained the world. The box was the Picture Academy for the Young, a popular encyclopedia in pictures invented by preacher-turned-publisher Johann Siegmund Stoy in eighteenth-century Germany. Children were expected to cut out the pictures from the Academy, glue them onto cards, and arrange those cards in ordered compartments—the whole world filed in a box of images.

As Anke te Heesen demonstrates, Stoy and his world in a box epitomized the Enlightenment concern with the creation and maintenance of an appropriate moral, intellectual, and social order. The box, and its images from nature, myth, and biblical history, were intended to teach children how to collect, store, and order knowledge. te Heesen compares the Academy with other aspects of Enlightenment material culture, such as commercial warehouses and natural history cabinets, to show how the kinds of collecting and ordering practices taught by the Academy shaped both the developing middle class in Germany and Enlightenment thought. The World in a Box, illustrated with a multitude of images of and from Stoy's Academy, offers a glimpse into a time when it was believed that knowledge could be contained and controlled.

Given the portions about knowledge and control, it might also be of interest to @remikalir wrt his coming book.

Go to chapter 3 for a discussion of this and other rooms in the novel.

https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/ROA-Times/issues/1997/rt9701/970129/01290089.htm

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1990/08/06/after-20-years-singer-furniture-leaves-parents-to-go-solo/5fea73cb-bb3f-436d-b2a2-0e70a6824e47/

https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/wjvoqq/if_youre_going_to_cast_some_zettels_you_may_as/

A list of German words and English equivalents for index card related containers and furniture

Karteikasten - index box<br /> Karteikartenschrank - index card cabinet<br /> Karteischrank - filing cabinet Apothekenschrank - apothecary cabinet

https://www.1stdibs.com/blogs/the-study/dimoremilano-capostipite-shelving-system/

https://orangecounty.craigslist.org/fud/d/santa-fe-springs-index-filing-cabinet/7515311169.html

https://www.officebarn.biz/shop/used-office-furniture/used-file-cabinets/used-specialty-file-cabinets/9-drawer-card-catalog-file-by-remington-rand/

9 drawer card catalog file<br /> Remington Rand

https://www.officebarn.biz/shop/used-office-furniture/used-file-cabinets/used-specialty-file-cabinets/8-drawer-card-catalog-file-by-allsteel/

8 drawer card catalog file<br /> Allsteel

Alternate index card holding furniture for display?<br /> https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/wffvs4/alternate_index_card_holding_furniture_for_display/

Separate from boxes for long term card holding storage, does anyone have any suggestions they like for organizing or temporarily displaying cards?

I've got a couple card tray rack organizers (originally intended for playing cards, but great for zettels) which I generally like.

I've also seen Levenger's note card "bleachers" which are similar, but more expensive. - Note Card Bleachers - Portable Note Card Bleachers - Nantucket Bamboo Compact Bleachers

Levenger index card bleacher for compactly displaying index cards in an array on a desk so that portions are visible but that they don't take up space.

Does anyone have anything else they like for compact working/displaying aside from laying cards out on tables/desks?

Do you have other methods for this sort of organization or layout of ideas visually? Corkboards, magnetic whiteboards/walls, other?

https://nextdoor.com/for_sale_and_free/aa66e37b-7875-4868-8e5f-22b34b84d9ec

4 drawer metal filing cabinet $25 from Amado Ulloa in North Pasadena Heights In good condition Included keys as well

Not quite 20 gauge vintage, but reasonably nice.

https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_IgMVAAAAQAAJ/page/n155/mode/2up

On page 138 Placcius shows an (uncredited?) version of Thomas Harrison's Ark of Studies.

p 140:

https://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/for/d/burbank-stackable-card-file-cabinet/7414409456.html

Steelmaster file card cabinet

https://www.etsy.com/listing/516040483/vintage-industrial-steelcase-index-card

I like the phrase "furniture of the written page"

Reference for this as well?

Is this the same piece of library furniture that I've also recently read of Leibniz using?

The Swedish 18th-century naturalist Carolus (Carl) Linnaeus is habitually credited with laying the foundations of modern taxonomy through the invention of binominal nomenclature. However, another innovation of Linnaeus' has largely gone unnoticed. He seems to have been one of the first botanists to leave his herbarium unbound, keeping the sheets of dried plants separate and stacking them in a purpose built-cabinet. Understanding the significance of this seemingly mundane and simple invention opens a window onto the profound changes that natural history underwent in the 18th century.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), who was not only a respected mathematician and philosopher, but also librarian at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel, is said to have had a filing cabinet built for him as book furniture according to his own ideas.

I'm curious to hear more about what this custom library furniture looked like? Could it have been the precursor to the modern-day filing cabinet?

I can picture something like the recent photo I saw of Bob Hope amidst his commonplace book.

This reminds me of folks making FedEx furniture a decade or so back: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedEx_furniture

Precursor of Ikea and others in the modern era. I wonder if there are other earlier/contemporaneous examples? Shipping would certainly have been at a bigger premium at the time compared to containerized shipping now.

An absolute passion - retail architecture - check out this exquisite fitout.

People these days prefer buying online rather than going to traditional stores. It was a bit tricky task but at last, we came with a furniture store app that has attractive designs as well as easy navigation.

A rocking chair or rocker is a type of chair with two curved bands attached to the bottom of the chair's legs. The occupants are allowed to rock back and forth while sitting on it.

Source from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocking_chair.

We have top class designers who is expert on graphics design. We provide clipping path. background remove, image retouching service. We are also expert on eCommerce photo editing.

"These small and elegant worktables were portable and could be easily carried near a light source or fireplace, or stashed against a wall when company came. They varied, some coming with a variety of compartments – some hidden – that contained writing and painting supplies. Many had book stands for reading, others had drawers that contained paper or embroidery threads and sewing supplies" (Vic, Regency Work Tables: A Regency Lady at “Work”, p 1).

I'm not quite sure how architecture and furniture will become similar... are chairs going to be coming out of walls?