Dies & Tools Used In The Manufacture of Badges, Awards, Buckles, Etc.

[Mike Yokum]

While not all of the dies shown in this thread are not specific to New Form items, they do give insight into 57er manufacture.

I thought it would be good for us to see this bit of the maufacturing process to help us understand how the pieces we collect are made.

Notice the TR GAB die. It is believed to be a "trimming die" used to create the cutouts in badges and awards.
Notice also the beefy nature of the dies, built to withstand very high pressures!

I found these pics to be very informative and I hope you do too.


Special THANKS to Nigel for sharing photos of his Deumer, Obverse EK Die! Many thanks my friend!

[Mike Yokum]

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[Mike Yokum]

And, here are photos of Nigel's 57er Deumer, obverse EK die. A wonderful and rare treasure for any military award collector!

Special thanks to you Nigel for sharing this with us!

Here is Nigel's description of the piece...

"Its an obverse die tool for EK's by Deumer, its 62mm high and a diameter of 68mm, and weighs in at a hefty 1.8kg!!!!
It is made in two pieces, a large "body" section, that i guess was the same for all dies, and a thinner "head" with the actual die part. It is unmarked apart from the letters PSP."

[Mike Yokum]

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[Mike Yokum]

Last, but not least, here are some photos of punch press machines from the 1940's much like those used to create our collectible treasures.

After this brutal manufacturing process came the gentle and precise hand finishing work of the jewelers to make the items into the beautiful awards we collect.