One of the interesting parts of the Tower of London for me was the old mint building. I pretty much had the run of the place because I seemed to be the only person who was at the tower that day who had an interest in it. They had a large number of coins on display. One of the most interesting artifacts was a bust punch for King Charles II. I get lucky and was able to get a picture of it through the glass. Here is the die making tool and a six pence that carries the design. I had read about these devices during my studies concerning U.S. coins. Tools like this were made for the Bust of Mrs. Liberty and the eagle on early U.S. coins. The procedure was to punch a center dot on the die face, drop in the main device, using the bust punch and then add the lettering, stars and date with individual punches. None of those devices has survived, to my knowledge, and it was interesting to see one at the Tower.
There are so many specimens of these with Spanish reales still existing today. It is so cool, really helps you visualize why so many coins have the same appearance with different spacing/varieties. Other than that that is a sweet punch, thank you for sharing.
