Mystery baseplates

Please Help me Identify these mystery baseplates!

I received five of these lil buggers with my no.4 vandercook proof press. I believe they are for mounting a plate to but am having a heck of a time digging up any helpful info. please forward this to anyone who might be able to help!

this is what I know:

I bought the press from an ink company who was using the vandercook to pull ink drawdowns (testing ink colors)

the five plates I have tessellate nicely (they have male and female receptors that ensure an exact lockup)

each plate is 4” square and 3/4” high

The top is inscribed with a grid

The pieces appear to be cast.

the valleys have teeth that are exact and appear to have been riveted in, post casting

the backs have the following inscription; “the Printing Mach. Co. Cinci Ohio.” (the printing manufacturing company Cincinnati Ohio)

Thanks for any leads!

Benjamin

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oops, the images didn’t upload.

here are the pictures!

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They are PMC Warnock patent base units for thick duplicate plates. Unless you already have suitable hooks (and if you try eBay there are two incompatible types, thin-lip and thick-lip), keys, accessories, filler pieces, they are useless with most plates made today, but you could use them as furniture. If you have the hooks you could mount modern plates onto bevelled sheet metal backing pieces to get to type height: a lot of effort.

Thanks parallel_imp!

It seems like an over engineered solution to mounting cuts on wood.

Well, the idea wasn’t bad but PMC Sterling bases (“honeycomb”) were much more useful, and are still being made today, though probably more for foil stamping use.