Dies, life expectancy?

[Sonofacqms]

Recently there have been lots of theories as to the fonts used on badges and the different letter sizes, spacings and widths of scroll etc.

As a former letterpress compositor (someone who worked in the printing industry using metal type) and on occasions had to cut lead type out by hand, I can appreciate the difficulties of anyone cutting dies out of steel for the production of badges.

My questions are:
How many pressings would be produced from a die before the quality was deemed beyond acceptable?

Would more than one die be produced by the same person at the same time or would they be produced by different employees?

Badges made by different contractors would obviously vary, hence differences in all aspects.

If anyone has any idea of the answers to the above questions it may help to give a reason as to why there are so many variations in badges. In a previous post I mentioned that during the Great War over a million men passed through the ranks of the ASC, not quite so many, but certainly with lots of the Infantry Regiments during that period having many Btns there must have been a great many badges required resulting in lots of variations of die struck badges.

I welcome your thoughts.

Rob