An essential element in any print shop, the type cases, more than mere storage furniture, functioned as true keyboards, as it was from their drawers that typographers retrieved the type pieces to compose lines and spacing that, together, formed complete texts. A type case like this—whose drawers and compartments were organized alphanumerically, including punctuation, symbols, spacers, figurative and decorative elements—could hold more than 50,000 types or punches. It can be viewed in the exhibition “From Sea and Land… A History in the Atlantic,” forming part of the Science and Technology Collection of the MAH.
