A type set tray (more commonly called a type case or printer’s tray) is a shallow, compartmentalized wooden drawer used to store the individual metal letters (movable type) for letterpress printing.

Quick Scoop

  • A type set tray is a flat wooden drawer divided into many small boxes, each holding one character of a metal typeface, such as letters, numbers, and punctuation.
  • Traditional printers kept one tray per font size and style, sliding these drawers into tall cabinets so they could quickly pull out the exact letters needed for typesetting.
  • These trays are historically linked to the terms uppercase and lowercase , which originated from the physical upper and lower cases used to hold capital and small letters.

What It Looked Like

  • The tray is usually made of sturdy wood, subdivided by thin wooden strips into dozens of rectangular or square compartments to organize each “sort” (an individual piece of type).
  • Because metal type is heavy, the trays were solidly built and stored vertically in racks, like a chest of many shallow drawers in a print shop.

How It Was Used

  • During hand typesetting, the printer would pull out a type case, then pick letters from specific compartments and line them up in a composing stick to form words and lines.
  • Each tray typically held one size and style of a font (for example, 12‑point roman), so a well‑equipped print shop needed a whole cabinet of different trays for all the fonts in use.

Modern “Latest News” Use

  • Today, original type set trays are mostly obsolete in commercial printing, replaced by digital typesetting, but they remain popular as vintage decor and craft pieces.
  • Crafters and collectors often hang them on walls and fill the compartments with miniatures, photos, or trinkets, turning the old printshop tool into a display shelf or shadow‑box style artwork.

Forum & Trend Angle

  • In online forums and thrift‑store communities, people often post finds of “antique printer’s trays,” asking how to clean them, hang them, or style them in modern homes.
  • DIY and mixed‑media art blogs share step‑by‑step projects using type set trays as bases for collages, memory displays, or themed collections, keeping this piece of print history visible in current home‑decor trends.

TL;DR: A type set tray is an old printer’s wooden drawer, divided into many small compartments to store metal letters for letterpress printing, now mostly reused as vintage wall decor and craft display shelves.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.