There is no such thing as a face cord, that nonsense doesn't take into account the length of the firewood. It is just a sorry attempt at marketing.
Exactly right. All 50 states define a cord as a legal unit of measure, and no state defines a "face cord" or a "rick" or any of the other bogus terms used by ignorant people. Yes, I did look it up. Some states actually make it a crime to use those bogus terms when selling firewood.
Why?
Since there is no legal definition of "face cord" or "rick", either term means exactly what you want it to mean, and nothing more. You could put 3 sticks in a 5 gallon bucket and call it a face cord or a rick. Since there is no legal definition, it's impossible to prosecute fraud.
And by the way, not only is there no legal definition, there is no universally agreed on definition. I have seen this come up on several forums over the years, and every time, people who think it's a legitimate term start bickering about what it means.
As far as what a tote cage holds, I carefully stacked a cord and then tossed it into empty 300 gallon tote cages. It took 5 even totes to hold the cord. If you stacked it carefully, I think you could get it into 4 cages. I don't do that because part of my goal in using the tote cages is to reduce the handling of the wood. It comes off the splitter and gets tossed into the tote, and stays there until it's time to take it into the house. Any other moving around is done by tractor.