I have a pewter buckle with a CAT engine on it, got me thinking, where are the molds they used for these buckles? I would love to pour a COLT buckle out of pewter or Linotype..
About 100 yr ago, (1981?) I was in a metal shop class and 1 of the projects was to cast some object in a sand cast . The Ford/Chevy belt buckle were popular choices. It's actually pretty easy to do. With a little file work they looked great .
Here are a couple from my old workplace. Top one is pre-1980s, bottom 1980-on. These were both mass produced by an outside shop that specialized in belt buckles. The first half dozen were done in-house.