In my last blog I looked at reproductions of the old chocolate molds. While I was doing my research and looking at all my molds, I realized that I had several I had thought for years were reproductions; they were not. These are chocolate molds that, although they are not as old as the antique chocolate molds, they are a special group unto themselves – let’s just refer to them as “New Issue”. I had thought these were also reproductions but, they were actually made by an original mold manufacturer, using the original dies to stamp them. Please keep in mind that New Issue is a relative term as these molds were made 30 plus years ago.
These ‘New Issue’ molds are a group of molds that were manufactured in the late 1970’s to the early 1990’s by The American Chocolate Mould Company, New York. The material used varied; some were food grade stainless steel others appear to be of a thinner type of steel. The American Chocolate Company used the old original master dies that they acquired with their purchase of Eppelsheimer & Co. in 1947. Since this group of chocolate molds were made by a mold manufacturing company using the old dies they really are not reproductions, they are New Issues of the original molds. These New Issue molds, like the true reproductions, have no numbers or markings on them. It is important just to be aware of what you are buying; these molds originally sold for about $5.00 – $10.00 each.
Whether this group of chocolate molds are designated as ‘Reproductions’ or ‘New Issue’ all really depends on how one defines a reproduction. Mr. Webster describes a ‘reproduction’ as “something reproduced; a copy”. These molds are not copies, but they are not originals in the sense that they were not made in the 1930’s by the original company.
Pictured below as a group are the food grade stainless steel ‘New Issue’ molds, below the stainless molds are other examples of the ‘New Issue’ molds.
Below is a ‘New Issue’ next to the original Eppelsheimer antique chocolate mold