First ever scientific study of typographic punches published

A new paper, published in npj Heritage Science by the SMALL PERFORMANCES Project team, presents the only available scientific study on typographic punches, which reverse-engineers, for the first time, the full manufacturing process of this type of objects. It uses the collection of punches cut by the famous typeface designer John Baskerville (1707-75) and later modern imitators as a case study.

Typographic punches are small steel tools, each individually forged, with a letter engraved on top. In the 18th century AD, they were the first tool needed to print a book.

This is an important contribution because, before this study, very little was known about the manufacture of these fundamental items in the history of printing technology.

In fact, this study shows that contemporary written records on punch-making were not accurate and did not represent the true technological diversity within the process.

This demonstrates how heritage-science analytical methods applied to material culture inform and enrich important historical narratives.

Finally, this study also establishes a methodological path for further research on this object type beyond the collection here studied.

This paper allows to better understand and explore the recently released corpus of photography, RTI and 3D models of numerous punches in the Cambridge Digital Library.

Published by a highly interdisciplinary team, combining archaeometallurgists, archaeological scientists, cultural heritage photographers, printing historians and craftspeople, among others.

The team includes:

Julia Montes-Landa and Marcos Martinón-Torres (Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge and more recently University of Granada); archaeometallurgist and archaeological scientist.
Mark Box and Maciej Pawlikowski (Cambridge University Library); Cultural Heritage Photographers.
Caroline Archer-Parré (Centre for Printing History and Culture, Birmingham City University); Printing Historian.
Ann-Marie Carey (School of Jewellery, Birmingham City University); Craftsperson.

They are just part of an ever-broader team of researchers as part of the “SMALL PERFORMANCES project: investigating the typographic punches of John Baskerville (1707-75) through heritage science and practice-based research”, which is funded by the AHRC. This larger team also includes more craftspeople, evolutionary biologists, typeface designers and rare books specialists, among others. This paper was also supported by Catherine Kneale (Department of Archaeology), Giuseppe Castelli (Department of Archaeology) and Susana Pancaldo (Fitzwilliam Museum).

The different specialisations of the team members allow the team to approach the Baskerville punches from a truly interdisciplinary perspective as objects of the past and the present.

This paper was funded by the AHRC (Grant code AH/X011747/1). The laboratory analyses at the University of Cambridge were made possible by a Capability Grant from the AHRC for the Cambridge Heritage Science Hub (CHERISH) (AH/V011685/1).

Published 1 May 2026

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