How to Identify Antique and Vintage Cast Iron Skillets

this is a terrifically exciting day this is one of my most favorite topics to talk about cast iron and specifically cast iron pots and pans from the 19th century now you might be saying to yourself my god this guy is a dork I have bought and sold a lot of mid-century and prior cast iron over the years it's still one of my most favorite things to flip and sometimes I keep some and sometimes I don't to keep from this video going hours on end I'm scoping it down to 19th and 20th century cast-iron pots and pans I'm really only gonna glaze over the 19th century stuff because it's not that common to come across there is money there and I'm gonna tell you a tip on how to identify and pick those up I'm also not going to talk about other things that are made out of cast iron there are household items and that there could be money in that's an entire video all to itself things like kitchen items like food mills or piggy banks that move back and forth also things like lawn ornaments could be made out of cast iron in the 19th century and still carry some resale value to this day I'm mainly going to cover six different topics it seems like a lot but we should have a little bit of fun doing it and you should learn something so get a pen and paper grab a hot cocoa and let's get into it the six areas I'm gonna go over are the Wagner Company the Griswold company the lodge company the Birmingham stove company unmarked cast iron and Asian cast iron now by far these are the companies and and cast iron pots and pans that you're gonna come across and where are you gonna come across these things as a disclaimer the first two Wagner and Griswold already have a high mark on them meaning not even resellers antique people the general public might know about Griswold and Wagner so you're not necessarily going to be able to score these on like Craigslist or Facebook marketplace because the average citizen might have a clue that there may be some money into it now that being said I've pulled a lot of old Wagner and Griswold out of estate sales sometimes the state companies just as an old pot or pan and don't realize what they're sitting on so if this is something that you're interested in getting in the next time you go to an estate sale make a beeline for the kitchen now before we really dive in I wanted to give you a quick rule of thumb I'm talking about 19th and 20th centuries so from the 1800's to mm this is what the scope of this video is going to cover you go how do I know what's old in there something from the 1990s is in the range that you just talked about and clearly that's not going to be worth anything and you're absolutely right so in the terms of 19th century stuff from 1800 to 1910 or so the manufacturing process for cast-iron was a little bit different if you come across a cast-iron pot that has a mark that looks like this that's called a flash mark or a gate mark and it's indicative of the manufacturing process that they used during that hundred year span when they filled up the mold they actually filled it up on the flat part and they physically broke the tab off where the cast iron was poured in and then they filed it down smooth it was good enough for the time but it's a really really good indicator if you come across a pot on the bottom that has that scar on it you might be onto something definitely pick it up and do a quick inspection on it and when you're inspecting what are you looking for just make sure it's not cracked cast iron is extremely durable and resilient and will last for hundreds of years but it's very brittle it doesn't take kindly to being dropped so if you pick it up and it rings it's probably still good here's another good rule of thumb in the early 1960s the United States mandated that all pots and pans have their country of manufacture put on them now the law went both ways so if you happen to pick up a cast-iron pot that says made in USA on it more than likely it was made after 1960 and what I mean by it went both ways if you pick up a cast-iron pot and it says made in Germany or made in Denmark it's after 1960 no matter what the condition is so it's really not that that old now you're saying well you left off of 1900 you came back in 1960 what about that sixty year timeframe good question another rule of thumb that you can look out for it something like this now you see around the outside of the pan that's called a heat ring that heat ring is a good indicator of something from prior to 1940 or so now despite what the name says it doesn't actually heat any better that heat ring was on the bottom because back in ye olden days people had wood-burning stoves and if you've ever seen a picture of an old wooden stove they have holes in the top of the stove top the heat ring was there so that when you put the pot down it wouldn't slide around it would kind of get locked into that that ring as stoves got more modern cast-iron pot and pan companies said we don't have to add that additional material anymore and they've since been removed like I said starting about the 1940s or so this is a modern-day lodge cast-iron skillet if you could see here it says USA so they're by the law that we just talked about being that it's modern it doesn't have a heat ring around it this is actually a groove I don't know if you can see that but if you look at it this way there's no protruding heat ring you'll also see that there's a size this is a size 14 and SK SK stands for skillet out of the companies that I mentioned earlier Wagner Griswold Birmingham and Lodge Lodge is the only one that's still in business today they're still manufactured here in the US I believe they're out of Pennsylvania Lodge has been around a really long time one of the easiest ways that you can identify some old Lodge and perhaps a moneymaker is when you have a pot that has a heat ring on it there will be notches in the heat ring at three six and nine o'clock they did that from approximately the 1940s into the 1970s 1970s not that old not a ton of money there but again it's a quick rule of thumb something you could put in the back your mind to be on the lookout for they also didn't put their name Lodge on the pots until the late 1970s or 1980s but one of the things that does remain consistent throughout their history is like I showed you the size and they always did an abbreviation of what the pot is this is SK for skillet you might see something that says eight eight Dutch oven but it doesn't have a name so it's a pretty good indicator that it's a lodge and it's older than 1975 one way to make sure that it's before the 1970s arguably one of the best inventions in the cast-iron world they didn't put this second handle on until the mid 70s so through your power of deduction if you have an unmarked cast-iron pot that has abbreviations on it a size number but it doesn't have a second handle more than likely it's an old lodge definitely pick it up and make sure it rings don't buy broken cast-iron and since I've introduced you to the size numbers let me go off on a tangent size numbers actually have no relation to a tape measure every company's size number was different from the company next to it if you ever bought kids clothes you'll know that the companies put numbers on them that really don't correspond to anything else only their own so a size 14 lid would fit on a lodge but it might not fit on a Griswold and like I said they didn't have anything to do with the tape measure they're holdovers from a olden days remember those holes in the stove that I talked about stove manufacturers will put different size holes on the top not dissimilar to modern-day where you have different sized burners and the heat ring would correspond roughly to the stove manufacturers rings on top the size numbers even though they were slightly different with different manufacturers generally correspondant to a size they ranked all the way from a zero which we things like novelty items like cast-iron shaped ashtrays or coasters all the way up to such as that a 15-inch size 14 and then you might get into unnumbered objects like larger pieces of cast-iron things like skillet tops or paia pans those are worth big big money like thousands before we get wrapped up with this gigantic pot there's one more thing I wanted to show you to differentiate new cast iron which isn't really worth much except when you're buying it retail and vintage an old cast iron which is worth something you see the angle here it's a rather obtuse angle that's a modern-day thing in the old days being that there was wood-burning stoves they needed to heat the transfers up so older cast-iron obviously older than this the angle is much more vertical it's still there but it's not nearly as wide as that so keep that in mind as a rule of thumb for aging old cast-iron the next company they don't want to talk about and arguably the most famous in regards to vintage and antique cast-iron is Wagner Wagner was an American cast-iron company that was around from 1891 to around 1959 they kind of fizzled out at the end there when they were merged together with arguably the other big dog Griswold they were bought out by a company named Textron and then eventually to another company named GHC where they were driven into the ground like all good corporations do the Wagner name was revived in the 1990s but it was a shadow of its former self if we come across Wagner with a logo like this it doesn't mean it was made in 1991 it was a centennial anniversary version made in 1991 and it's not and it's only worth his scrap don't bother picking it up so how do you ID a Wagner simple their logo went through many iterations over the years and being that it wasn't that long ago it has a relatively good documented history of what time frames they use certain logos also Wagner was good about not abbreviate anything it will say six and a half inch skillet in full typewriter block letters but there's an exception like there isn't everything else in life in order to maintain their status Wagner made an unbranded line that took their logo off but kept that distinct typewriter font on it they're known as unbranded Wagner's and these would be sold at Woolworths or five and dimes as opposed to the branded ones which would be sold in places like Macy's they weren't done back then they knew exactly what they were doing they were selling the same exact product adding one more manufacturing step to it and jacking the price up and selling at a higher price at a bigger store the next company that we have to talk about is Griswald Griswald was a cast-iron company from around the late 1800s to 1959 when it was merged with Wagner and subsequently ran into the ground there is a tremendous history on Griswold and it's far more I could do a whole video on Griswold pots alone basically the same rules that I said for Wagner apply to Griswold as well they're usually well Mart there's gonna be intricacies and dating them but they're almost definitely going to be worth more than you buy them for when you come across them in an estate sale or a garage sale you have very strong collectors in either of these markets you have people who just collect Griswold you have people who just collect Wagner and then you have people who collect everything it might be made out of cast iron but for us it's like gold so be on the lookout for any number of these variations and as a side note not dissimilar to Wagner there also were unbranded versions of Griswold for the same reason one of the ways that you can identify Griswold is this unique handle design the ridge that runs up the back also a little bit later on they had what was called the Iron Mountain series with this very unique looking handle it wasn't labeled Griswold the collectors know it as a Griswold the next vintage or antique cast-iron company that you might come across as the Birmingham stove company that's Birmingham Alabama not England on those they're distinctive feature is a solid unbroken heat ring there's no notches in it they usually only had two letters on them which would be the size and whatever mold they were made from also look at the bottom of the handle it has that sharp Ridge that runs into the pot doesn't stop on the handle it's a design feature pretty well known on the birmingham's one note about birmingham's is their heat ring even though at this point it was just a vestige of history they ran their heat ring later into the 1960s well after its functional use so it makes it a little bit harder to date those but if you see that funny handle you should probably pick it up I'd like to talk about Asian cast iron Asian cast iron became very popular in the 1970s here in the United States Asian cast iron generally sticks out for its rougher texture it's not worse it's just rougher they generally came with wooden handles built in like shown here and despite any rumors that you might have heard about them being made out of pot metal or whatever Chinese ium there is out there they're completely fine to use and there they're a staple and households across the country to this day are they worth it for reselling probably not are they worth it to cook with absolutely oh and one more identifying feature of Asian cast iron pots is they'll have ridges where your thumb would go on the handle almost no american-made cast iron came with that so if you see that thumbprint it's almost definitely gonna be from Taiwan where the majority of the Asian cast iron was made so there's one more thing that I wanted to talk about like everything else in reselling conditioned his King before we talk about price you have to talk about condition if there's one thing that I don't want you to be dissuaded by when you're looking at vintage cast iron and that's dirt stickiness is gonna happen with vintage cast iron don't think that that's something that you can one not just clean off yourself or two might dissuade a potential buyer from buying from you because it's dirty that's okay rust on the other hand is something that you want to be considerate of if the thing is a big rusty mess it's gonna affect the price and the big one when it comes to vintage cast iron and condition is whether it lays flat or not if you push the handle and it rocks back and forth more severe the rock the less you're gonna get for it another way to check for a flat bottom is if you spin the handle if you were to lay this thing down flat and it doesn't move we know the bottoms flat if you push the handle and it spins like a top no collector wants it no matter how old it is that means the bottom is warped it's not gonna cook right and it's certainly not going to display right and the big thing that everyone wants to know what are some numbers we covered a lot of topics and depending on condition depending on company and depending on age these pots can go in the $40 range to the thousand dollar range most of them are gonna fall in the between forty and hundred dollar range and with rarity and condition the next level is going to be in the hundred to two hundred dollar range if you were to find something really rare or really big regardless of condition it's not uncommon for them to go over a thousand dollars they're not very common but they are out there so keep it in mind when you're about to purchase if you're if these things are priced for a couple of bucks and you come across them pick it up a couple of bucks in two forty is a good flip a couple of dollars into a couple hundred dollars is an even better flip and since these are collectors items don't do free shipping do calculated shipping with them people are gonna pay for it they know they're big they know they're heavy they know they're gonna be packed well so don't be afraid to put calculated shipping on that's just the nature of this item now while the big companies and the in the collectibles block are Wagner and Griswold there are other companies out there that are just as old but the prices might not be as high just yet some of those companies are Martin vollrath which is still in business but they haven't made cast-iron pots and pans since like World War two and Chicago Hardware Chicago Hardware easily identifiable by that hammered finish that's on the side well they might not command the prices that Griswold or Wagner do there's no reason to let these things languish or perhaps even go to the scrapyard they're still excellent to cook with and depending on the piece they might actually be worth money so as far as I'm concerned when I see vintage cast-iron I almost always pick it up now one other note like I said in the beginning this just covers pots and pans these companies made a number of different products from corn bread skillets corn on the cob holders and cupcake molds not the similar to modern companies these days not just like the items themselves the prices on these things vary I've pulled a number of these out of Goodwill's over the years people just don't realize they just see it as an old hunk of metal so while not exactly in the scope of this video if you see the name Griswold or Wagner and any of the other clues that I threw in there on these product definitely pick them up a meeting that I posted on my IG today about this topic and I showed a great example of what could happen if you don't treat these things well here's a note about shipping them like I said earlier cast-iron could literally last centuries and they actually only get better with age if you treat them properly but they don't take kindly to any shocks or abuse you could overheat a cast-iron pan by just leaving it on the stove and it could crack I always tell people if you're gonna sell and ship cast iron even though it's heavy and it's a brute and it looks like it's bulletproof it needs to be shipped as if it was glass that's how brittle they could be especially when they get older don't blame the weather don't blame age raus store it's just the composition of the material so treat vintage cast-iron is if you would treat vintage Pyrex ship it with care if you like this sort of video go ahead and click here click here click here thank you very much for watching keep sending them

Channel: TheDCpicker

Views: 235,138

Keywords: priority shipping, reselling, how to sell on ebay, online marketplace, first class, ebay, amazon, fba, resale, garage sale, estate sale, shipping on ebay, popeyes sandwich, ebay sales tips, ebay selling for beginners, flip, flipping, rummage sale, thrifting, thrift store, thrift shop, ralli roots, selling on ebay, ebay seller, what sells on ebay, cast iron, vintage cast iron, antique cast iron, wagner cast iron, griswold cast iron, griswold cast iron skillet

Id: 6g4-qj_dg-s

Length: 19min 16sec (1156 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 05 2020