I'm in the early planning stages for a project that will essentially
be a recreation of an "Amberg's Patent Letter File" cabinet I ran
across while my wife was craft/quilt supply shopping. The only good
thing about those stores: they quite often have some very nifty
furniture. This was was rescued from an old hardware store and still
had drawer labels like "cement" and "manure". Beautiful quartersawn
red oak and, although it's obvious why we've moved from flat file
storage to hanging files, an attractive, versitile design. Also: not
for sale. "Maybe for $20,000," the owner said. I don't blame her,
really.

Anyway, the thing about these drawers is that they don't have a back.
There's a sprung clip that holds the papers down when you slide the
drawer in. Any idea if this sort of thing is available or what else
might work?

In answer to the question "Why not just put a back on the drawer?"
Well, I'm not sure why *they* didn't (maybe just because it's easier
to pull the file that way?), but the way this shop was using theirs
was an impressive demonstration of why my wife wouldn't want one. You
can slide the drawers in backwards and have a little display shelf
sticking out.

I have some pictures on the digital camera of the actual specimen, but
haven't uploaded them yet. The (near as I can tell) exact same drawer
design, with a clear view of the hardware I'm looking for, can be seen
at
http://www.officemuseum.com/Amberg_L..._drawer_OM.jpg

The actual cabinet isn't shown on this site, but you can see some
examples of similar designs (actually I think the closest is the
"Shannon Filing Cabinet" if you pretend it's only three drawers wide)
at
http://www.officemuseum.com/filing_e...t_cabinets.htm

That said, I'm actually considering construction more like the "Globe
Combination or Sectional File"
http://www.officemuseum.com/Globe_Fi...aders_1_OM.JPG
from that same page and integrating it with a modular barrister
bookcase project I've had on the back burner (awaiting space time and
money). But that doesn't resolve the issue of making the drawers.