Mystery little press

I'll try and remember to look this weekend. I don't recall any logos

This is an old nut cracker style. Here is a patent to a similar one from 1935:

If I can remember, I'll take a look in my old catalogs for something similar.

I am 100% positive this is not intended for use inside a house - and it is certainly not a nutcracker:

1. the receptacle in the base is acurately machined with three diameters, such as would be needed in a bearing press or maybe some kind of gun thing (shotgun?) - a nutcracker would be more rounded
2. there is no ornamentation of any kind

1. it is made of steel, not brass, not pot metal.

2. the top (movable) part of the press is flat, not curved so it would tend to eject a nut rather than retaining it.

the fact that Iggy has one and on the left coast my friend has the exact same and identical item says that it was probably not a shop made tool but was a production item for a specific purpose that made sense in both cold and warmer climates. It could be related to coining something, it could be a button press (maybe, but I don't think so), the one I can inspect is not greasy, which suggests it is not automotive related -- could it be related to a farm - for example a pill press for horses or something?

3 things,

1. have you identified the thread type and pitch? thatas one clue as to when itwas made.

2.I use presses a lot from fly presses of 1 ton to 250 ton hyd preses. Its a possibility that what you have is only part of the tooling set up that went with it originally.

1. whats the length of stroke? for example if you were pressing in a ball bearing race into say a front hub of an early 1920,s/30,s motorcycle you would need enough head room for the hub with the machined recess in the press base to register the bearing. or if you were pressing a bearing onto a shaft, the bottom recess locatesthe shaft limit of pressing, then the next one locates the the bearing,and perhaps the top one locates the housing. Just a few thoughts.

Iggy already answered this earlier: ===

=== The way I read that and by looking at the first image it is cup shaped like the bottom is (shrug).

I really not trying to argue with you, just pointing out that there were old nutcrackers that looked like this. The thread looks kinda fine though for nut cracking.

For pushing out bearings and such, I don't like the cup things, especially on the top and bottom...