John Barlow sold his reloading tool business, the Ideal Manufacturing Company, to the Marlin Firearms Company in 1910.  In the press of WWI contracts, Marlin sold Ideal to Phineas Talcott in 1915.  Talcott held onto the company for ten years or so without doing much with it and finally the Lyman Gun Sight Company bought Ideal from Talcott in 1925.  The switchover was announced in the Ideal Handbook #27 of that year.

The name "Ideal" persisted on the moulds, loading tools, handbooks and advertisements until the early 1960's.  After that, "Lyman" was the name on the books, moulds and tools, as well as the gun sights.

I can't help with the location. Back then, nobody needed a street address to get in touch with any company.  You might check some of the old city directories if you are in the area.

Guys,
Thanks for the info. I had guessed that the merger was closer to 1900 that that. I'll see if I can't find out more from local sources.
Regards, Ron

John Barlow was born in England in 1846, and immigrated to the US at age two. He served with the Union Army during the Civil War, and later in Arizona, being dicharged as a first sargeant. He moved to New Haven, Ct. and went to work for both Parker shotguns, and later Winchester. He established Ideal Tools in 1884 and sold it to Marlin Firearms Co. in order to retire and travel. He died of a heart attack in 1912 while visiting his daughter in Venice, Italy.
The old ads I have show an address of 30 Willow St. in New Haven, but I'm not sure if this was before or after Marlin owned them.
I show Marlin's address as 79 Willow St. New Haven, Ct.

Gentlemen,
Having been born in, and raised near New Haven, I've also been interested in the location of Ideal.  I've attached a portion of a map dating to 1910, showing the Marlin complex.  That is Willow Street running a bit diagonally near the bottom of the picture.  With the exception of the northwest corner, the entire block seems to be Marlin.  FYI, pink represents a masonry structure, yellow is wood.  I suspect that the semi-detached masonry building at the SE corner of the block may have been "30 Willow St".  Marlinguy, I think that the entrance to I91 would be in that empty block on the right, though it might be just past the river

In the current issue of the "Black Powder Cartridge News", there is a reproduction of an old Ideal advertisement giving an address of "No. 5 U St., New Haven".  I don't know the date for the advertisement.  There is no longer a U Street in New Haven, and I haven't been able to locate any other reference to it.  My sister's mother-in-law has a vague recollection that in the 30s, there might have been some letter named streets in the south west of the city, but I can't confirm that.

I'm just starting a vacation, and I'll try to get down to the NH Historical Society-- they might have a notion about "U Street".

Regards,
Doug

Doug,
You really did a great job digging this up. Here's a related question!

What other locations did Lyman use before the one over by Lake Beseck in Middlefield? I still remember the optical board used to focus scopes that was down by the pond until a few years ago. 

Regards, Ron

That book is a little paperback and was still in the catalog at least until a couple-three years ago.  Some opportunists were trying to sell it on flea-bay at the time for a starting price higher than it could be bought straight from the source! 

froggie

Thanks for that great detective work Doug! I'm printing it out to keep with my Ideal and Marlin collection! 
I had one of those Ruger Lyman rifles, and I planned to copy the book before selling it, but couldn't do so without damaging it. Great info inside it!