To round things out, Phineas Talcott had a business address somewhere in New Haven, but his Patent No. 1,463,603 (for an arbor-press type reloading tool, of which we have not seen any examples) lists his residence as in Branford, CT, eight miles to the east.  A number of nickeled tong tools without any makers name or address, but otherwise identical to those made by Ideal and Marlin, have turned up.  Inasmuch as no-one has reported any literature or packaging bearing his name, some of us speculate that he may have been embargoed from using the "IDEAL" name as a condition of his acquiring the line from the Marlin-Rockwell interests in early 1916.

Lyman's Tom Grifffin (manager of their Ballistics Division) advises that the "IDEAL" stamp on the moulds was replaced by "LYMAN" between 1967 and 1968 (the Lyman name had already been used on their tong and bench tools and accessories for several years); and that Lyman itself moved its headquarters from MiddleFIELD a few miles west to the larger city of MiddleTOWN in the summer of 1994.

Doug Elliott/"floodgate"