Great Ideas all. Thanks.

The circumference of the dies have a half-round inset to receive a set screw (or several) This would make for easy change-outs of the tooling.   .....maybe press out some sterling silver coinage..... for alternative currency some day...

 

I have one of those punches made from S1 and forged it into a  hot cut.  (first higher carbon steel I've worked where the book says NOT to normalize it!).  I really love it, it gets a lot of work---just been using it to slit a Cristolph cross in 1" steel.  By shear luck I had a pair of tongs with the ends forged to hold that recessed part perfectly at a 90 degree angle that are now dedicated to it and with a flattened pipe section to lock the reigns together.