when was old Ideal made?

Tonight I read in a Brian Pearce article in a Handloader that Lyman bought Ideal from Marlin in 1925. Last night I was doing searches on when the Ideal blocks ran out and the Lyman stamped blocks began to be used. It was the early sixties.

Older Lyman moulds tend to have a straw color rather than a blued steel color. I have two Ideal marked .44 moulds that have white colored metal. One is an Elmer Keith special (429421) and the other is a 431244 (not 429244). Does anyone have any ideas on dating these?

Elmer did up the 429421 design about 1928 and the Thompson I think is a post WWII design.

Copyrighted material , but just Google "44 swc" & some articals will come up from various writers , some very informative as to origins of designs ,an excellent one is from Gleen Fryxell.

To give more insight google 38swc also .

I've read the Glen Fryxell articles. The question is on these particular blocks, not the bullet designs. The clues are the white metal and the 431244 mould number, rather than the more common 429244.

Ideal was sold to Marlin in 1910 and they made the tools until 1916 when it was sold to another individual whose name escapes my mind. This other individual, sold Ideal to Lyman in 1925. So, Lyman did not buy Ideal from Marlin.

IIRC, Lyman ran molds under the Ideal name until the early 60"s. I have no idea about what could have happened with block colors. The numbering system also went from 431xxx to 429 xxx in the late 50's early 60's.

Hello, everyone. I bought quite a few Ideal moulds from Bill Loos when he was selling his inventory. some were stamped with star symbols. Bill told me these were from Winchester..who used them for their load development.

Ideal dates back to at least the early 1890's.

I have a few of those Ideal molds with the three stars on them that I also purchased from Bill Loos. At the time (about 15 years ago) Bill said that they were the molds used by Ideal to make sample bullets for potential customers.

w30wcf

this is interesting http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_Appendix_A_MouldAge.htm it may not answer your question but it is a good read.