Abstract: The invention relates to a coil box, which is mounted between a roughing rolling train and a finishing rolling train, for metal pre-strips, in particular steel strips, which are hot wound to form coils and are protected against further cooling in the vicinity of a winding and/or unwinding station (6) by means of heat-shield devices (7) on the front faces (5a; 5b) of the coils. The aim of the invention is to universally configure said coil box. To achieve this, the heat-shield devices (7) are configured from lateral walls (8a; 8b) that can be pivoted to rest against the front faces (5a, 5b) of the coils and a pair of opposing heat-shield devices (7) can be aligned in parallel to different coil widths (5c).