On Thursday, July 4, 2019 at 8:13:49 PM UTC-7, pyotr filipivich wrote:

...they were carving punches (to make coins) in
Mainz in the 1300's, I'm going to assume I can short cut a few steps
and use modern material science to my advantage.

How did that 'carving' happen, though? The use of a copper disk charged with
abrasive was known millenia ago, that's how Romans got carved gemstones.
Milling with a needle point can do things, but the needle which will cut soapstone
or wood or graphite, won't do much in type metal. The graphite, though, can
plunge-EDM just about any suitable metal.

Up til the 'greenback' dollar of 1862, the veins of a leaf were etched
into the printing plates to make a hard-to-duplicate pattern. So,
chemical machining of plates does qualify as an antique procedure, too.