Brewery seal stamps?

Hi there,

I just acquired the two metal rounds shown below. The one on the left appears to me to be a die for making the one on the right, but I can't possibly imagine what a metal seal would be used for in the brewing industry. My wife suggested that the one on the left with the image inversion was meant for wax letter seals, with the piece on the right simply being a stand on which the seal stamp would have rested, indicating which seal was being used when the user picked up the seal stamp.

The brewery that they are from is the now defunct Soo Falls Brewery in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

Both seals are relatively heavy and look as though they've both been cut off of different things. I believe them to be from the pre-Prohibition era.

Thoughts?

Soo Falls seal 1 by jjmclell posted Nov 17, 2016 at 8:50 PM

Soo Falls seal 2 by jjmclell posted Nov 17, 2016 at 8:50 PM

 

Welcome to Antiquers! Unfortunately your Gallery Album is set to Private, so no one can see your pictures to provide help or comments. If you go back and set it to Public, they will magically appear.

 

Thanks for the heads up! I updated the permissions.

 

Dimensions?

 

The piece on the left is the "stamp/die" and the piece on the right is the finished product.

 

They might be the upper and lower halves of a "corporate seal" for embossing the seal of the company on official documents. I have my great grandparent's corporate seal for the family business, but the seal dies are still installed in the stand for it, so I can't show pictures of the dies themselves. Each half is about 1.5 inches diameter.

 

I believe you are right on the money with the corporate seal suggestion. I googled images of antique corporate seals and found pictures of the devices that would've pressed paper between these two rounds, embossing the image as a seal of authenticity.

Thanks for your help!

 

Are you on Facebook? They actually have a group on there ... with fairly recent posts. Maybe you could message them.
https://www.facebook.com/SooFalls/

 

Welcome!

 

Definitely the positive + negative of a seal-stamp press. I've never seen them outside of the press before. They're cute!

 

Since the OP didn't say what metal the pieces are,the left stamp appears to be steel or other hard metal and the right appears to be lead and the finished"seal".

 

Yes, the brass coloured one seems like a harder metal and is less worn. Here's an image of a press that looks like it would've used two metal pieces similar to what I've presented to emboss documentation. Note the top round shown in the press is brass coloured, and the bottom is more lead coloured.