Adventures in Cast Iron

Went to an auction (review later) today that was advertising Griswold and Wagner skillets. They had one of each and four other junk skillets! The Griswold was a small logo #8 late handle and the Wagner was a #10 from the 1960's to 1980's with the size in inches and made in USA on it, nothing special. I was very disappointed having driven for an hour to get there. Deceptive advertising? The one positive for the day was I got to spend time with my youngest daughter (she's 5), we get to go out without mom and big sis and we can act as goofy as we want too.

We left the auction because we didn't like the cast iron and headed back to what we thought was a big yard sale or flea market. All these cars turned down this street and looking down the street we noticed that there were cars parked everywhere along the street. I asked my daughter if she wanted to go to the sale if we had time after the auction and she said she did.

We got to the street and the traffic was horrific. We also noticed it was a church, in fact it was a United Methodist Church. So we were like hey it must be a big church sale going on. We found a parking spot and we headed for the door. We could hear organ music and we thought that was kind of strange for a sale even for a church.

We got to the door and a couple of women came out giving us a strange look. We looked in seeing the minister wearing his long white robe standing by the interior door shaking hands. I said to my daughter this isn't a sale it's a church service, odd for Methodists to have a church service on Saturday. Turning around to leave I saw the hearse and flower vehicle.

We had basically walked right by the hearse to go up to the church door, not noticing it on the way there. I said to my daughter, oh my god lets get out of here this is a funeral. We were both saying hurry up lets get out of here.

When we got back to the parking lot we noticed the two women that had come out of the church giving us the stink eye, they were walking their dog. I'm sure they were giving us the evil eye because of the way I was dressed with my baseball cap, jeans and with my shirt untucked. Who are they to give us a look when they brought their dog to a funeral? I ask you who brings a dog to a funeral? We got out of there as fast as we could blaming each other for ending up at a funeral looking for cast iron.

We ended up at Dunkin' Donuts. On the way home we saw a bald eagle fishing! Bad day for cast iron but fun just the same.

Shopping Tips for Vintage/Antique Cast Iron Cookware

When out shopping for cast iron cookware there are certain things you want to look for. Your treasured find may be covered in grease, dirt and grime as well as rust so you may want to take along gloves or hand wipes. If you are at a big event such as a flea market you may want to take along something to carry your finds in such as a backpack or a wheeled cart. Make sure your back can take the strain or that the wheels on your cart are solid and won't break under the strain of the heavy cast iron.

Expect to pay full retail prices for items that are clean! Items not cleaned you should figure on the price being discounted 20% to 30% or even more from retail pricing. But be careful with pieces that are covered in grease as you never know what is under that grease. I have overpaid a number of times for items covered in grease that were not as perfect as they appeared to be. One nice #9 Griswold block logo skillet covered in grease turned out to be quite pitted on the bottom from use on a coal stove. I can't resell this pan as people look at it and make a inward sucking sound when they see it, so it has become an everyday user in my kitchen, it is a great pan probably the best pan I use.

Take any pan you are interested in and handle it, check it over thoroughly. Feel the pan, is it smooth or rough? Put the pan on a flat surface and grab the sides does it rock back and forth? Knock the pan does it have a nice ring or a thunk? You want the pan to be smooth, sit flat and ring. The ring means it has no cracks but don't be fooled, knock the pan all over with a metal object because knocking on the bottom only you might miss a crack, like I have on a beautiful #9 Erie pan. I knocked the bottom of the Erie pan and it rang like a bell but I later discovered it had a crack near the handle. So I knocked the Erie pan again and it rang like a bell on the bottom but as I knocked around the sides I discovered the thunk from the crack that I could now see because I had cleaned the pan.

One thing that is extremely important to remember is not to get overly excited about a find. Stay calm. Don't let your heart race away with your emotions. Look at any cast iron purchase as a business transaction. Easy words to say but extremely hard to do. I get carried away far too often and make mistakes overpaying or buying damaged goods. So do as I say not as I do because I have a growing pile of broken pieces of cast iron in my garage.

If this sounds like too much, you can always buy from my store! I have already taken the risk on dirty, grimy, greasy and rusty pans and cleaned them to a beautiful condition and offer them for sale at very reasonable prices in my store at Etsy.

The pan that causes the sucking sound from people who see it!

The Competition Can be Fierce

I found a fantastically beautiful #9 Victor Griswold skillet yesterday. It was locked up in a case in a store, it is very dirty and ugly and nasty. When I first got my hands on it all I knew it was a Griswold because that was all I could read. I knew it was different from a regular Griswold but wasn't sure how it was different. A woman immediately approached me asking me what kind of pan it was and I made the mistake of telling her that it was a Griswold.

Well this woman was all over me asking me the price and telling me it was too much money to pay for the pan. She kept watching me, hoping I would put the pan down, she even told me she was hoping I'd put the pan down! She asked me what I was going to do with the pan and I told her I was going to clean it and resell it. She got all upset and told me I didn't know what I was doing, that I was wrong and the pan should never be cleaned because all the "flavor" would be lost. I told her that I had no idea what the previous owner had done with the pan and that the price of the pan is at least 20% less when it is covered in grease like it is. She insisted that I was wrong, looking for help from other people in the store. Her husband said he didn't care about cast iron and I told her that the previous owner could have used the pan as a pot to go to the bathroom in on a camping trip for all I knew about it. My pot statement seemed to gross out her teenage son who told me that was disgusting. She left the store after haggling over prices in a charity shop.

I got into a conversation with a nice couple who were asking me questions about cast iron and if their pans were of any value. I had to tell the nice couple that there are so many variables in cast iron, condition, size, manufacturer, logos, that it was impossible to give them a price without seeing what they had. They told me they had a Griswold and a Wagner (which the woman pronounced Vagner because she was German). She actually said is it "Wagner" or "Vagner" because in Germany we pronounce it "Vagner". I told her that was understandable with the composer Wagner which is pronounced Vagner.

I pay for my pan and a book my wife found at the last minute. I go outside the store and the woman from earlier pops up again behind me and tells me she is watching me to see if I put the pan down. I told her that I had paid for the pan and I was going to put it down in my car when I got to it.

The lighting had been so bad in the store I didn't realize that the pan was a Victor until I got outside and could see it in the sunlight. Victor pans were manufactured by Griswold with the fully marked variety (which this one is) manufactured from 1920 to 1935.

It doesn't look like much does it?

Finding Cast Iron

On saturday went to a flee market that is the first saturday of the month. Got a #10 Wagner Ware skillet, a Griswold dutch oven with no lid and 2 muffin pans no names. Then went to a second hand store and got another muffin pan. Today easter sunday went to an auction advertising cast iron and had a look - it was all junk. Drove around a lot went to one of my favorite junk stores - there found a #8 Favorite Piqua skillet, a very large muffin pan and a bread stick pan, no names again. I can clean them all up and sell them.

On the way into the junk store had an interesting little conversation with the owner, typical old tyme Maine person (he's probably well into his 70's). I asked, "How are you doing today sir?"

He replied, "I'm doing good, I have to."

I inquired, "You have to do good?"

He said, "Sure don't you have to do good?"

Then I said, "I guess I do, there are state and federal laws that say I have to."

He said, "Don't they make the rules for you?"

I thought he meant my daughters because they were coming up the stairs at that time so I said, "No they are to young, in a few years I'm sure they will be making rules for me. Doesn't you daughter make rules for you?"

"My daughter, naw, not my daughter," he pondered.

"If not your daughter then who," I asked.

"Everyone else," he said.

I left it at that everyone else makes the rules. I walked away shaking my head.