🔎 UNIDENTIFIED Image of a press?

[EnvoyToTheMolePeople]

I found this little item in an antique store. It seems to be small lead disk with an image of some kind of press. Does anybody know what it is?

 

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[Retired Sarge]

What does the back look like? Could be a button or a medallion that was attached to a tool, like a saw medallion.

 

[Retired Sarge]

Got to wonder if the press depicted on the button, is in fact a button press....Would be a hell of an advertising gimmick.

 

[EnvoyToTheMolePeople]

Nope, not a button.

 

[EnvoyToTheMolePeople]

It's definitely lead, despite the green patina. It looks like the number 40 or 400 is carved into the bottom. There was another one of these at the antique store where I bought it.

 

[Blackfoot58]

I wonder if it was from an embossment stamp set with multiple, interchangeable plates for various purposes.

 

[Red-Coat]

Love mystery items. The equipment pictured looks to me like a lever-operated 'arbor press', typically used for die-stamping. A decent-sized press could certainly generate enough pressure to emboss a lead disk like that, so maybe the disks were produced from a demonstration die for the machine.

 

[EnvoyToTheMolePeople]

Love mystery items. The equipment pictured looks to me like a lever-operated 'arbor press', typically used for die-stamping. A decent-sized press could certainly generate enough pressure to emboss a lead disk like that, so maybe the disks were produced from a demonstration die for the machine.

Yes, that is possible. Any idea how old something like that would be? The precision of the design makes me think 1800s.

 

[Red-Coat]

Yes, that is possible. Any idea how old something like that would be? The precision of the design makes me think 1800s.

First manufacture of arbor presses was in 1883 but they were popular devices well into the 20th Century and still used today, especially by hobbyists and craft workers.