We all know what coinage dies look like but what do (did) the dies used for dates and mint marks look like? Are they simply 1/4" or 3/16" square tool steel bars with the letter/number carved in the end? Were they commercially made and purchased by the mint or were they made in-house? Were they made only as needed or are there drawers full of them, ready to be put into use at a moment's notice? For the dates, were they all single digit dies or were some of them carved on a wide bar or were two or more clamped together to be used as a unit? Pictures of coin dies are common but I've never seen a photo of a date or mint mark die.
The Mint used punches, not dies, to punch mintmarks and dates into dies. I don't know if the Mint purchased them or made them in-house but I suspect they made them in-house. From what I have read date punches could be single numerals or two or more numerals ganged together.
Depends on the time period, they had done both. Before 1840 individual numeral punches were used. In 1840 they briefly experimented with two digit punches, and switched to 4 digit punches.
No such thing in modern times There is no such thing as "date & or mint-mark" dies since about 1990. The entire image is transferred from the working hub to the working die. Before that from master die to working hubb and before that from the master hubb to master die, (the simple explanation). The entire image is on the finished working die in modern times. date, mint-mark and all the lettering, numbers, and design. Before 1990 the mint-mark was punched into the finished die with a punch with a single letter, (P - D or S), (depending on what denomination it is). I suppose the mint-mark punch could be considered a type of die but it does not strike any coins. It was common during the 1800's and into the early 1900' to also re-punch, (or re-engrave) some elements of the dates also esp. the last 1 or 2 digits of the date into the master hubb but rarely into the working die itself. It would not make much sense to re-punch an added number into the working die when you can achieve the same effect, (by re-engraving) into the master or working hubb thus eliminating extra steps. Through all this you must remember (in modern times) that the finished working die is a complete negative image of what the finished coin will look like, it's all there. To more specifically answer your question it is a die that strikes the coin and punches, tooling or re-engraving is done by devices not generally considered to be dies at all only tools to help create dies. Ben Peters
At one point in time everything on a die was created by using punches. It was quite a complicated process.
