Patent ID: 8875888

Claim:
A container assembly, with at least one stackable container which has a bottom part with an opening, and a lid assigned to the opening of the bottom part and movable relative to the bottom part for either opening or closing the opening, and designed for the vertical stacking of several containers in such a way that the lid of a lower container comes to lie between the bottom part of the lower container and an upper container positioned immediately above, wherein the at least one stackable container is provided with at least one connecting device which has a movable connecting means, by which the bottom parts of containers resting directly on top of one another may be connected releasably together to obtain a container unit comprised of several containers, and wherein the movable connecting means comprises: a rotating locking bolt mounted on the lid, the locking bolt being rotatable with respect to the lid between a connected position and an open position; first and second anchoring means provided on the bottom part to interact with the rotating locking bolt, the first and second anchoring means being spaced apart in the stacking direction of the container, whereby the first anchoring means are disposed closer to the lid than the second anchoring means in such a way that, when the rotating locking bolt is in the connected position, the rotating locking bolt of the lower of two stacked containers is simultaneously in connecting engagement with the first anchoring means provided on the bottom part of the lower container and with the second anchoring means provided on the bottom part of the upper container, and, when the rotating locking bolt is in the open position, the rotating locking bolt is entirely out of connecting engagement with the first anchoring means provided on the bottom part of the lower container for releasing the locking between the lid and the bottom part, while the rotating locking bolt is still in engagement with the lid; and a pivot pin extending outwardly from a front face of the lid, the pivot pin defining a rotation axis for the rotating locking bolt and the rotating locking bolt being rotatably mounted on the pivot pin, wherein the rotating locking bolt comprises a plurality of locking slots adapted for engagement with the anchoring means of the bottom part, the locking slots being spaced apart from one another on a common circular arc, the center of the circular arc being the rotation axis defined by the pivot pin.