hey guys,

my mom runs a thrift store and she sent me a picture of this thing in hopes of id'ing it.

any ideas?

 

Greetings Iron,

 

      Just my 2c...   It might be an early version of a impression plate ( stone) for use in leather work..  I will be interested in others input.

 

Forge on and make beautiful things

Jim

Someone started to carve a stone chalice, but it all got too hard.

it's actually steel. it's got me stumped. weighs in at 25 lbs.

 

ah well thanks anyway ;)

Stamping die for silverware?

Riffing off of Patricks idea, Possibly a form for a silver or tin candle holder. 2 sides that would then be soldered or riveted together after dishing the blank?

looks to me like one of a series of progressive dies for cutlery making. Any marks on the sides that look like mounting evidence?

I once saw a video of some guys casting a bronze sword in a mold like that, just a different shape of course. Maybe it could be used for casting parts to something?

I cannot add all that much other than conjecture but of one thing I am quite certain, it is has nothing to do with any sort of foundry process.  I have seen antique style molds for casting bronze flatware in actual use and they bear no resemblance to this item. Note there is no sprue arrangement at all, something that would be essential if it had anything to do with casting a part.

 

 As to it's actual use I have no idea.  The impression is so shallow I can't see what use it could be put to other than to make a light impression on a piece of sheet metal of some kind.  

looks alot like a mold you'd make for casting thin parts out of pewter, but normally those are soapstone...

 

Could it be a holding ficture for engraving a production line of silverwear?

I cannot add all that much other than conjecture but of one thing I am quite certain, it is has nothing to do with any sort of foundry process.  I have seen antique style molds for casting bronze flatware in actual use and they bear no resemblance to this item. Note there is no sprue arrangement at all, something that would be essential if it had anything to do with casting a part.
 
 As to it's actual use I have no idea.  The impression is so shallow I can't see what use it could be put to other than to make a light impression on a piece of sheet metal of some kind.

I cannot add all that much other than conjecture but of one thing I am quite certain, it is has nothing to do with any sort of foundry process.  I have seen antique style molds for casting bronze flatware in actual use and they bear no resemblance to this item. Note there is no sprue arrangement at all, something that would be essential if it had anything to do with casting a part.
 
 As to it's actual use I have no idea.  The impression is so shallow I can't see what use it could be put to other than to make a light impression on a piece of sheet metal of some kind.

Reseach one sided mold.
It could indeed be a permanent mold for any nonferrous metal being steel itself.
One sided molds need no sprues gating or vents.

See lots of these out there in the antique trade. As others have said it is one half of a stamping die for a piece of silver or silver plate. There was a bankruptcy auction at Lunt Silver in Greenfield Mass several years. They stored thousands of these die sets in fireproof rooms to safeguard the huge investment they and their clients had in their development and manufacture. If I recall there were also separate dies to cut out silver blanks before the stamping process and maybe trimming dies as well to trim off the excess silver(flash) after the pieces had been stamped. So multiple die sets to produce one piece of a flatware set.


On edit I see that it is not exactly the same as the examples I've seen but I almost guarantee that it is somehow involved in the said flatware production. I see a chip in one of the corners which has me wondering whether it is cast iron although these dies are generally hardened tool steel which can chip as well.

Since the photo leaves so much to be desired, I've been reluctant to put forth an opinion.

 

But my first impression, upon viewing the photo, was that it might be intended for use in the process of "Stone Lithography".

 

 

 

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Reseach one sided mold.
It could indeed be a permanent mold for any nonferrous metal being steel itself.
One sided molds need no sprues gating or vents.

I don't need to research one sided molds.  This has nothing at all to do with any foundry process.  The impression is far too shallow for casting anything.  The fact that the impression runs right to the edge also means that anything molten that you poured into it would imply run out.  There is nothing to contain liquid metal.   It is far more likely to have something to do with a stamping process.