Article storage rack

Claim 1

A storage rack for storing articles of right parallelepiped configuration, such storage rack comprising a solid body which includes a pair of opposite end faces, a front side extending between the end faces, a rear side extending between the end faces and parallel to the front side, and a lower side, said body having formed therein, and lying generally in a series of parallel, contiguous, substantially vertically extending planes, a plurality of article-receiving grooves, adjacent grooves within said plurality being staggered with respect to each other, so that articles supported therein are vertically staggered with respect to each other, and each of said grooves include a pair of intersecting, article-supporting surfaces, said pair of article-supporting surfaces including a forward article-supporting surface and a rear article-supporting surface, the two article-supporting surfaces in each of said grooves intersecting each other to define an angle subtended by the intersecting article-supporting surfaces at the point of intersection therebetween, and said grooves opening generally upwardly in order to receive said articles therein for storage, the forward article-supporting surface of alternate ones of said grooves being disposed in a plane which is offset from a plane containig the forward article-supporting surfaces of the intervening remainder of said grooves located between said alternate ones of said grooves, and said rear article-supporting surfaces of alternate grooves being disposed in a plane which is offset from a plane commonly containing all of the rear article-supporting surfaces of the intervening remainder of said grooves located between said alternate ones of said grooves, whereby contiguous articles placed in said article-receiving grooves are staggered with respect to each other in an alternately repeating pattern, and are thereby more accessible in presenting portions of contiguous articles for grasping without interference by other articles, each of said forward article-supporting surfaces having a pair of opposed boundary side edges each lying in a vertical plane which also contains one of the boundary side edges of the immediately adjacent forward article-supporting surface of the immediately adjacent groove, and also contains a boundary side edge of the rear article-supporting surface of said immediately adjacent groove, each of said grooves in each pair of adjacent grooves being located in immediately adjacent contiguous positional relationship to the other groove in that adjacent pair, whereby any two articles stored contiguously therein, and occupying such adjacent grooves can abut flatly against each other in side-by-side relation without any intervening vertically expending structure forming a portion of said storage rack separating such two contiguous adjacent pairs of stored articles.