This unit was styled as a machinists chest. The drawers fronts and sides were routed with a drawer lock bit. The drawer backs uses tongue-and-dado construction. The top of the lid, bottom of the top compartment, and drawer bottoms are all 1/2" plywood. The bottom of the box (the drawer compartment) is 1/2" plywood with a strip of hardwood applied using tongue-and-groove construction. The drawer dividers and the divider in the top compartment are 1/4" hardwood set into dadoes in the drawer fronts and backs. On the inside of each side of the drawer compartment are two strips of 1/2" hardwood to act as runners for the drawers. The drawers have a stop dado a bit over 1/2" in width the accommodate the runners.
The back is similar to the bottom: plywood with a strip of hardwood along one edge. The sides use a raised panel construction but the panel is a piece of plywood the same nominal thickness as the sides.
The front uses raised panel construction with a 1/4" thick plywood panel. The bottom of the front panel has a rabbet to form a tongue that fits into the bottom of the unit when the front panel is in place. There is room underneath the bottom drawer to store the front panel when the chest is in use. The top of the panel is secured with two 5mm brass-plated pins that go into two brass sleeves in the lid.
The drawers are divided into compartments just over two inches wide in order to store 2" x 2" cardboard coin holders. There are eight compartments per drawer to store holders for seven different coin sizes (from smallest to largest): dime, cent, nickel, quarter, small dollar, half dollar, large dollar. plus a compartment to store 2" x 2" blank sheets used to mark reserved slots. The original plan was to have only a single drawer but due to the style of the chest a dual-drawer design resulted in a nicer look.. The drawer compartments were also sized wide enough to hold boxes of 1000 "TOT 50" or "No. 10" staples.
The top of the main box is divided into two compartments. One is sized to hold standard 20-coin plastic sheets. Other other is meant for miscellaneous supplies and tools.
The lid has a large slot to store reference papers. The slot is formed by a piece of 1/4" plywood that runs the entire length of the lid.
