A brass engraved die has been created to emboss the King’s cypher on to the famous red despatch boxes. The die, made by luxury British leather goods company Barrow Hepburn & Gale, which manufactures the boxes, is first made on a machine that has to run overnight to create the cypher’s intricate details.
The die is then hand-finished and hand-polished before it can be used to apply the gold leaf emboss of Charles’s cypher to his despatch boxes. The brass die of the cypher has to be heated to a high temperature before an imprint of the cypher is applied to each of the boxes.
The cypher will feature extensively on Government despatch boxes and other official items made by Barrow Hepburn & Gale. The King’s famous red boxes contain a range of important papers, including those that require a signature, briefing documents and information about forthcoming meetings.
