VOCABULARY TERM: PUNCH, PART ONE

Punch, Puncheon. A tool made of steel containing a letter, figure, dentile, ornament or a part of a coin or medal design used to press into softer steel to make a die, or to counterstamp a numismatic item. Punches and puncheons are, in effect small hubs to transfer some design element to a die during engraving or diesinking. The terms punch and puncheon mean the same, but there are two kinds of punches: one a small hand tool used manually for adding individual characters one at a time by tapping the punch into the surface of the die; the other, a more conventional hub, contains the device or portrait which is sunk into the die by a press during hubbing.

The advantage of punches and puncheons is the elimination of the tedium of manually engraving the same design element over and over again. The first coins were made with punches (in Lydia in 640 bc) and punches are still in use today 2800 years later. Not only have punches been coinmaker's oldest tool, they are virtually indestructible – 100-year-old punches are still serviceable.

Punches are always right-reading to be pressed into the die (left-reading or negative) so the piece struck from the die will again be right-reading or positive. Punches of letters, figures or ornaments are used to add style and uniformity to any inscription or design created by them.

How hand punches are made. Individual manual punches are from two to five inches in length with the design character – in relief – on one end while the other end is flattened to receive the tap from the diesinker's hammer. The body of the punch is tool steel and almost always has four sides; it is made square to aid in alignment of lettering or orienting the punch to a base line or other design.

The character punch is made from a matrix, usually of brass, infrequently in steel. Some punches were made from matrix patterns supplied by type foundry houses (which made printers type). Or the matrix may have been made by the engraver himself, carving, cutting or sinking the design cavity into the brass or steel. The matrix is tempered or hardened before use.

The steel punch, cut from plate or rods, is shaped with four sides. It is annealed, softened, and pressed with force into the matrix to form the relief letter, figure or design on the end. Dead metal around the character is trimmed away and is shaped much like a pencil point by grinding or turning on a lathe.

The bevel sloping away from the relief character on the end of the punch is quite important, as this taper will be reproduced in the die. It must be such that any piece struck from that die will not hang up. A bevel of 2 1/2° (holding taper) or less will not eject, thus a draft of 5° or more is necessary. (A diagnostic for identifying a struck piece made from punches is this steep bevel and uniformity of letters; hand engraved letters would not be as uniform and dies cut on die-engraving pantographs would not have the steep bevel.)

Punches are formed in sets of uniform typeface and size; an English alphabet, of course, would have 26 characters. The ten figures, however, 1 through 9 and zero (have only nine characters, as the 6 and 9 are formed by the same punch. The sets are housed in wood blocks, each punch resting in a hole drilled into the block.

A punch has to be created for each character and for each size; these range from the smallest perhaps 1/128th inch up to 1/4-inch or more for lettering on coins and medals. In addition to letters and figures other punch characters – the dentiles for the border in the shape of dots, grains or tooth shaped; also ornaments created by a decorating tool – the stars, center dots, rosettes, crosses, and such. Many of these are in imitation of printers' type, with colorful names as doodads, wingdings, or special characters.

Logotypes punches. So useful were letter punches to eliminate the tedium of engraving separate letters by hand that the natural extension was to make punches with more than one letter or figures for such repetitive groups. A gang punch or logotype would have two or more such characters, as a three- or four-digit date, for example, to be applied to coinage dies.

Makers names were often made as logotypes, sometimes even with monograms, symbols, trademarks, copyright marks, and background shapes, some quite elaborate. The entire design, of course, would be cut in the matrix and the punch pressed into this, then hardened for use. Each manufacturer of silver objects prided themselves for their trademark punch design.

Punches used in diesinking. Punches were first used in creating the first coins, but with the decline of engraving during the middle ages (800-1500 ad), the use of punches increased. Instead of engraving a modulated relief design, coin engravers made pictographs of rulers. Punches were used to make the entire design, forming linear and cartoon-like forms.

Beginning in mid 15th century engravers returned to preparing modulated relief dies by hand engraving. However they still relieved the most tedious part of die engraving – the lettering – by using punches to repeat a letter without having to engrave it over and over. After the device was hand engraved the lettering would be sunk in the die by these punches. (See handcut.)

With a set of letter punches the engraver could lay out a coin or medal design, scribe a base line on a blank die (or transfer the design by wax or chalk), then begin by carefully arranging the letter punches in the order to appear on the die. He would generally start – not at the beginning or end of the line of lettering – but at the center, working each letter at a time, one side of that central letter, then the other. Remembering, of course, he was using punches to make left-reading legend in the negative die. The purpose was to have a balanced or uniform length of lettering to fill a prescribed area.

The square shank of the punch had to square up with the base line to carefully align the character. A tilted letter or figure was the mark of an inexperienced diesinker. He would set the punch on the surface of the softened steel die block and with a broad-headed hammer (called a chasing hammer) tap the punch driving it into the steel. The depth of the cavity created by the punch – which would create the height of the lettering on the struck piece – was also the mark of the experienced engraver; it should be uniform!

The chasing hammer would have a broad circular head because the engraver would keep his eyes on where he placed the point of the punch and not on the end he tapped with the hammer. He could hit the punch by intuition not by aim!

Spacing between the letters was the next most important factor. Placing the punch in the correct position, aligning it with a base line, the proper distance from its neighbor, and the amount of pressure by the hammer were all critical factors facing the diesinker. Experience was very important, years of apprenticeship were necessary to learn this skill.

Some diesinkers would rig up a jig for aligning the punches. This would greatly aid in the proper positioning of each punch. These jigs could be ingenious in their method of positioning and allowing the punch to penetrate the die to the exact depth. Here, again, the diesinker's experience was critical.

For the larger punch, containing the device or portrait, this was more than could be sunk by tapping with the engraver's hammer. It had to be sunk by hubbing in a press. A device punch or portrait die could be so transferred to the die. (The device punch was usually made by cameo engraving, but it could be created by any method, reduced by pantograph – where it would be a reduction punch – or itself hubbed.)

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