My audio tape cassette storage problem has been bugging me for quite some time now. Over the years I’ve accumulated a lot of cassette tapes (both music and games) and that number is constantly increasing. I’ve been storing a lot of them in those old drawer units (the ones usually covered in tacky looking wood effect vinyl). Whilst this is an effective storage method I’ve always found them a bit of a pain to use and also my tapes are hidden away out of sight. I’ve also got loads of tapes stacked on top of each other on a shelf and this is far from ideal too. Forty year old tapes are not something I want to risk playing Jenga with!
EDIT (2024): I now produce my own cassette storage racks which you can check out here: Cassette Storage Racks.
All this leads me to the reason for posting this article. After searching around for a while for a better solution I finally found one I’m happy with so I thought I’d share it.
This is a link to the racks featured in this post.
The Solution
The audio tape cassette storage solution I found is a purpose made wooden rack that can hold 60 cassettes in their boxes. It’s manufactured by a company in Germany called ‘Protected’ and are available for sale on . Delivery took less than a week by DHL.
The packaging the racks arrived in.
The racks came individually packaged. Opening the cardboard box (carefully to avoid cutting into it) revealed the nicely bubble-wrapped rack inside.
My cat loves it when I open new parcels!
All three of mine arrived in great shape. I must admit I was a little wary about ordering at first as I wasn’t sure if these were getting knocked together in someone’s garden shed. There is only one (poor) photo on the Amazon website and precious little info provided. However I was very pleased to discover a high standard of both manufacture and finish.
Nicely finished woodwork
A Closer Look
The racks are constructed from solid strips of pine wood and the back panel is made of plywood. All the strips of wood forming the slots are perfectly aligned and fit perfectly flush. There are no sharp edges or splinters to worry about as everything has been sanded smooth and edges rounded off. The back is a little rough but once in use you’re never going to see or touch it again.
There are 4 pre-drilled holes in each corner so you can wall mount the racks. Somewhat disappointingly plugs and screws are not provided. However this is not that big a deal and most people my age have probably got loads in a jam jar somewhere in their shed or garage. I would also recommend the use of a washer as the holes are quite big. Using a washer will also prevent you from driving a screw right through the thin plywood back panel.
width…
Size wise the racks are approximately 20″ (51cm) long and 13.5″ (34cm) tall.
height…
I opted for the natural pine finish but they also offer a white one too. I’ve not seen that in the flesh so can’t comment on the finish of it. I guess you could also either varnish or paint them to suite your colour scheme too. I’m quite happy to keep the bare wood finish for my setup though.
Closer look at the slot construction
The slots are perfectly sized and I’ve not found any cassettes that wouldn’t fit into the them.
A selection of VIC20 games slotted in nicely
The rack is slightly shallower than a cassette is deep (2″ or 50mm) which means tapes stick out about 1/2″ (12mm). This allows you to easily get your fingers around them when you need to get them out.
Top of rack makes for a useful display area.
You can even use the top of the rack as a small shelf for extra storage or display purposes. I’m still experimenting with what looks best but will probably settle for displaying double-cassette boxes or the odd big box game.
Racks filling up nicely…
Finishing Words
I have to say I really love these racks and I’m glad I’ve finally found a storage solution that fulfils my desire to display my stuff too. I filled my three racks straight away so have just ordered another three. With six racks I’ll have the capacity to store 360 tapes in total. That’ll allow me to store all the tapes I currently own and hopefully leave me with enough empty slots to accommodate future purchases, fingers crossed.
The racks are available from Amazon here:
Update: 1st April 2020
Fitted the extra three racks so as promised here’s a photo of the finished project. I still have a few empty slots left thankfully but how long for is anyone’s guess!
Finished project with enough space for 360 cassette tapes.
Hope you found this article useful!
I’ve just stumbled across your blog , you kept this quiet ! Some memories flooding back here . I remember xmas morning 1988 and the joy that santa had left with the c64.
Special mention to Super G Man that was my fav game for a while
Haha, how did you stumble upon my site then? Never mentioned it as it’s about as far removed from Xbox as you can get!
I noticed the (very small print) mention at the foot of your email and decided to explore !
Yes , very far removed from our normal gaming conservations but I am old enough (just) to appreciate most things c64 related
Hey! I had a question about what you did to mount the racks? Did you opt for drilling through or did they come with a slot on the back to hook them on?
Thanks!
Hi Zach, if you look carefully at some of the photos you should just be able to spot the pre-drilled holes in the corners of the racks. There’s a hole in each corner so I just used screws and wall plugs to mount them all.
Thank you so much for this recommendation! I had discovered the website for it’s great assortment of vinyl sleeves, but hadn’t seen this cassette holder yet. Now I’m gonna order some as well.
Glad you found it useful, took me a while to find these racks – cassette storage options aren’t exactly plentiful these days!
Fantastic! Thanks for this, what a great company.
Do you think these would work for decks of playing cards?
You know, I think they probably would but I’ll dig out a pack tonight and check the fit and let you know.
They do actually fit, with room to spare – here’s a photo of a pack I just took.