Review of "The Book of GRISWOLD & WAGNER" 4th edition

I believe "The Book of Griswold & Wagner" 4th edition is the newest edition of this book, published by Schiffer 1995 with the 4th edition published in 2005. The authors are David G. Smith, also known as "The Pan Man," a collector of muffin pans, and Chuck Wafford,  whose specialty is cast iron miniatures and muffin pans. This book is variously called "The Bible" and "The Blue Book" by cast iron collectors or so called experts. The reason the book is called the blue book (the book is blue) is because the authors added another book that is red, so if collectors refer to this as both "The Bible" and "The Blue Book" this must be the old testament or the Hebrew Bible.

Le'ts get straight to the point: while this book may be the best book on the market for Griswold collectors, it leaves a lot to be desired. The photography is adequate — David G. Smith is the photographer — and the color section is much better than the black and white. Well over half of the items I have found, for either Griswold or Wagner, can't be found in either of the books, blue or red. The listed pattern numbers don't always match up to what they claim as far as plated and bare cast iron. There could have been much more done with the pattern numbers, such as including the years they were used or perhaps cross referencing them with prices. The index is poor at best. A skillet chart with pricing, maker's marks, sizes and years made would have been handy. More and better or more accurate information on pieces would have been good. There are pans for which the authors don't list measurements or listing inaccurate measurements. A better job of editing would have caught the fact that Wagner's catalog numbers are in the book twice.

While I understand that Griswold is the gold standard of cast iron collecting, I wish that more space had been dedicated to the other manufacturers in this book. Not only is this the book of Griswold and Wagner but also Favorite, Wapak, and Sidney Hollow Ware. Approximately 226 pages of a 328 page book are dedicated to Griswold, with their poorer cousins—all four of them—getting 102 pages between them. If so much space is dedicated to Griswold, why not cover more of their aluminum products? Even Wagner, which shares the main title, gets only 52 pages of coverage; there should have been more room for Wagner because, after all, they did eventually buy out Griswold.

The authors are biased as far as prices are concerned, the prices listed for toys and miniatures favored by Chuck Wafford and the muffin pans favored by both authors are extremely overpriced, while at the same time the prices for skillets and dutch ovens and such are undervalued by perhaps 20% or more. I have tracked the prices of cast iron items for a few years now and found this bias on the part of the authors.

The authors themselves know that their pricing is biased, by the fact that if you follow David G. Smith's web site The Pan Man, you will notice little things like his claim that the book pricing is based on "pieces in excellent condition" yet he occasionally sells cracked pans at the low end of his book price range. How can a cracked pan be anywhere close to excellent condition? Other pans Mr. Smith sells are above his own pricing. Collectors use this book as gospel for pricing, especially when dealing with inexperienced people. Even the collectors will even claim that the prices are too high in the blue book and that is why I started tracking prices.

By now you must get the impression that I hate this book and or the authors, yet nothing could be farther from the truth. I use this book on almost a daily basis if not multiple times a day and feel that "The Book of Griswold & Wagner" is a must for any collector casual or serious and it just might be the best book on the market for cast iron collecting. However, if a new edition is ever in the works, I'd like to see the items from my "wish list" in this review included.