My physican gave me permission to steal 2 urine sample containers. I store large safety pins in one, small in the others. Mostly they're stored open.

I took a workshop from Mary Ellen Hopkins, a quilter from Santa Monica, CA who was at the forefront of the machine piecing movement back when it wasn't popular to use your machine for anything except sewing binding on. She encouraged us to leave them open. It takes way too much of our valuable time to open & close them any more than necessary. I store my pins in a round Singer tin lunchbox. I have about 3000 as I pin heavily. Yes. sometimes I get gently stuck, but what I do is grab a pin which usually brings a bunch with it. I move my hand over the quilt and gently shake the pins loose as I move over the quilt. This distributes them to where I will use them.

I USE A KWIK KLIP to aid the closing of all the pins. I love it & worth the investment.

mine and mom's are combined and we have them in a huge plastic coffee can and open for easy use.

I store mine open and in a tin that had sweets in it --- Oh and I ate the sweets !!!!!!!!!!!!!
DottyD.

That sounds great.

I store mine in a big plastic ice cream bucket ( I have bout 3,000) and they are open. Yes it gets tangled, but it works for me!

I close all the pins except one. Then I slide the small end of the closed ones on the shaft of the one. They're neater, I can hang the entire bunch on my pegboard and you don't stick yourself picking them up.

I also use the gum container, but I stosre them open. They aren't that bad of a mess. If you throw the stuck together ones on a hard surface they will usually separate.

I store mine open in a tin. I find them easier to use when I don't have to open each and every one while pinning a quilt sandwich.

I store mine open in an recycled plastic margarine tub. When I go to use them a bunch come out all tangled but all I do is give it a gentle shake and they fall onto my quilt top all separated.