sets of 1/16" ACE letter & number punches

1 ea. ACE STANDARD DUTY STEEL NUMERAL and LETTER SET, made by HENRY L. HANSON CO. Inc. of Worcester, Mass., 1/16" size.

These are rather an 'industry standard' thing found in a lot of industrial settings (at least) where they're generally used to punch ID or any other sort of info or notations into/onto other things, especially stuff like serial numbers and whatnot that tends *not* to be 'the same thing' every time -- as long as, that is, the info can be made up of 9 numeric digits, 26 alphabetic characters, and 2 punctuation marks. The 6 (or 9) is omitted from the 9-punch number set since that punch makes both numbers, the letter set has additional ampersand (&) and period (.) punches along with the complete alphabet to make its 28pcs.

Each punch is about 2-1/2" long, to use them properly they are generally held in place individually while striking the blunt end with a hammer or mallet, preferably something more 'soft-ish' than a typical steel hammer in order to avoid damaging the heads of the punches with repeated use. They're hardened tool steel of course, but everything has its limitations over the course of many decades of use, which would easily be the expected lifetime of quality punches like these -- I have seen much older sets than these (probably) are, as well as much newer but lesser quality sets, that get "mushroomed" over time with the repeated beating they naturally take.