OK, question for those of you who buy lot's of full boxes of cigars...

Based on the description of "box tetris", I assume most of you keep the cigars inthe box, which is then inside a humdor, coolidor, etc. At what point do you ditch the box because it's mostly empty due to smoking the contents and taking up more space than the handful of cigars inside require? I have a growing stack of empty boxes (and sometimes just order 4x 5-packs instead of a box of 20) because I just take the cigars out and put them on a shelf in the tupperadore.

Other than long-term storage/aging of a full or nearly full box, do you guys leave the cigars in the boxes and store the box or ditch the boxes?

I don't have shelves, just Tupperware boxes and coolers, a few trays in them. So I use empty boxes for various five packs and singles. Same w half full boxes. I put singles and 5vers in to fill it up and put a sticky note on the outside to keep track of what is where.

I usually keep the cigars in the box for aging purposes and to keep track of age until the last 3-4. If the box does not list the date code I mark it with the date I purchased it. Prolly have about 35+ boxes most of which have been sampled from. Of course this doesn't work if storage is limited but I have 3 humis totaling about 3000 stated capacity and the boxes help hold RH constant as well.

I only keep about 50-60 singles out at any one time.

I'm kinda the reverse of DED...usually toss a box when it gets below half full...

I have one large tupperdor (24" x 17" x 8" --12 gallon?) with 6 snap lid holding boxes -- maybe 12-15 in it now, one shelf of a three shelf end table humidor devoted to boxes, many with a variety of stuff that I write on an adhesive label to keep track... the other two shelves are loaded with trays of singles, as well as the top pull out drawer...

three table top humidors, one 25 count, one 100 count and one 250 count, all filled with singles

four smaller two gallon snap lid tupperdors filled with singles...

explains why I leave the cello on...

These days if / when I buy a box, I put it in a gallon or sometimes larger Ziploc with a bag of 65% HF beads. All of my coolers are maxed out despite my efforts to amalgamate and optimize them. I’ve kinda been able to organize the coolers by major brands with one for Cubans only. With that being said, I don’t want to reinvent the wheel and reorganize the coolers each time an old box gets close to being empty and replace it with a newer box. When I start to mix in other cigars into a box that’s less than 50% full, I’ll list the invading cigars and tape it to the box lid.

I used to save my old, excess boxes and give them to one of my nephews but I’ve given him so many he doesn’t want more so now I’m starting to build a collection of empties.

I've always stored loose smokes. Originally due to desktop humi size, and later due to habit. I tag each with date received and where from. Koobans I put box date on the label

The boxes have made good storage for various tiny things, bodies for a few guitars, one Kalimba, and also excellent kindling

I’m somewhere between. I have a few still in boxes. Starting to just open new boxes and stash in bags I don’t write dates on my smokes. Maybe I should. I dunno. Thinking of taking some more out of boxes. I’m not 100 percent sure aging matters By that I mean I don’t think the box itself does a whole lot.

I would agree. My view has been proper humidity and some cedar will do the same as the original box

Now if if someone would build me that walk in humi, I'd be down for some box storage