.310 Dies

These are factory cut away/demo for .38SPL. At least that is what I am thinking right now. I have no literature that mentions them, none of the prominent collectors I know have ever seen anything like them. They are an egnima.
They were made for the 310, so that makes then post 1947. Unfortunately the box is not in the best condition and it is impossible to read some hand written notes on the lid.

Thoughts? Questions? Ideas?

Attachment 247920

No idea but I will say they are very cool .

Salesman's samples, for showing potential buyers how the dies work.

Not hard to do for anybody with a mill. Who did it is anybody's guess.

I agree with dsh1106, that’s instantly what I thought of

Set used for marketing/advertising photo shoots?

I just recieved this information from Lyman:

Ken,
This is just an educated guess but my thought is that these were cutaway for internal sales/marketing use. I don’t know of them ever being sold this way. Through the years we have cutaway die sets for use in catalog photos, demos, and trade shows. I haven’t seen 310/Ideal dies done this way, but have had several sets of newer 7/8”x14 dies machined the same way. So I would guess that these were done for this type of use and somehow got out into the public.
Tom Griffin

Ken,

Since Lyman has been tapering off on their emphasis on the 310 lineup for the last couple of decades or more, I'm not surprised that they wouldn't have put forth effort to make any advertising or demo stuff for the 310 family in recent years. Tom has been in that position for a few years, but the history of Lyman seems to have been sort of spotty over the last few years. I was surprised at a couple of the random things Tom's two predecessors didn't know when asked about them (mostly for confirmation.) This is not a slam on the folks there, it just doesn't seem like this is something they emphasize.

Froggie

Having the expander die and the seating die cutaway may make them a bit easier to use. You could actually see them as you adjust them instead of by feel alone. Interesting idea.
Leo