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.