NNP

Background Punch.  A punch used by engravers to manually apply a repeated design – as stipple – to form texture in the field of a die or medallic piece. Some engravers once made their own background punches by acid etching one or more punches; this produced an irregular pattern that they could apply as irregular variegated texture to the background. Some engravers even like to use broken punches for the irregular design it provided. The British use the term backgrounding for applying punches to form a background texture. See  punch, puncheon (1).

excerpted with permission from

An Encyclopedia of Coin and Medal Technology

For Artists, Makers, Collectors and Curators

COMPILED AND WRITTEN BY D. WAYNE JOHNSON

Roger W. Burdette, Editor