Andresen Rosette Irons

[Tom Neitzel]

Since we are getting close to the time of year that Norwegians start to think about making Christmas treats, I thought I'd post a picture of a couple pages out of the circa 1903 Alfred Andresen Pocket Catalog (that WAGS members can find in the pdf section).

Have any of you ever seen these boxes with the irons in them?  You see them on eBay all the time - right?

I didn't have one until this past summer, and I specialize in Andresen wares.

If you've been around me for a while, you should know by now that the words to think about when you see me post is that "Things may not be what they seem."

Have to head to the park shortly, and will fill in the information when I get home this evening, unless someone else notices what makes it so special.

[C. B. Williams]

I've looked it over and can't find the oddity. Or, maybe it's the pictures that say "contains two irons and shows three" ?

[Cheryl Watson]

The postage doubled from page 47 to page 48...

Page 47 shows a wood handle, page 48 a wire loop handle.

[Jim Fuchs]

  Would it be the use of the word Cake instead of Rosette? :-/

[Tom Neitzel]

Good observations Cheryl, but it is a wooden handle in both.  I missed the postage.

Here's another picture that shows the answer.

And a bigger picture of the label you see in the catalog.

[Cheryl Watson]

Tom, I meant the actual PRODUCT in the box has a wire loop handle... as opposed to the graphics.   :)

[Cheryl Watson]

Patent Applied for is on the boxed set, not shown in the catalog.....

[Jim Fuchs]

 Only other guess I would have is one is The Western Importers, the other Home Baking Dept. 

[C. B. Williams]

Tom will, sooner or later, feel sorry for us and let the cat out of the bag.  :-/

[Keith Rumgay]

Rosette Irons -- Scandinavian Cake Irons

[Tom Neitzel]

  Would it be the use of the word Cake instead of Rosette? :-/

That's the easiest to see.  This is really a lesson in what you can learn from labels and advertisements.

The Scandinavian Cake irons appear to be about the earliest name I have seen Andresen use.  If you look at the other pictures, you also see the early, non-griswold Goro and Krumkake irons.  This is before he got the patent for the rosette irons.  You also see that there is a wooden handle.  I don't know if they were ever sold that way as all I've seen is the wire.

The Rosette Iron label says patent applied for.  He applied for it in December, 1904.  It was granted in June 1905.  This label still shows the old style Goro and Krumkake.

The catalog that I took the picture pages from is thought to be from around 1903.

Andresen switched to Griswold style irons in about 1905, that's the dates we see on the recipe booklet he started including with the irons.

You can see from this later label he says the Rosette Iron is patented and shows the Griswold handled irons.  He didn't get the patty shell (timbale) patent until 1907.

These things all help date an item.  I've been looking at some old ads that Joel sent me some years back for the plett research.  I'm still looking, but it looks like Andresen started selling the rosette iron by about 1898, maybe a bit earlier.  He started his business in 1894.

That's about it.  There's just an incredible amount of information in a few pieces of paper.  We can put pretty specific dates of a couple of these irons based on this information.

I also believe the Scandinavian Cake iron boxes may be scarce.

By the way, he patented the Kornukopia iron on this label in 1906.

Tom

[Tom Neitzel]

By the way, if you are purchasing Andresen Rosette Irons, and they have the Griswold style irons on them, you should get the recipe booklet with the set.  It should be there.

[Cheryl Watson]

Sneaky... verrry sneaky.......... >:(

Give us half the puzzle and expect us to solve it!

Me no like Tom no more.........

 ;D ;D

[Tom Neitzel]

Geez Cheryl  [smiley=yikes.gif], I was just looking to see if folks noticed the title difference.  The other stuff would only be know by an Andresen nerd like me.  I may be the only one around.

Anyway, I always like a complete package, so here is what I believe the label would have looked like between 1907 and 1913, after he got the patty shell patent.  I turned the iron on the right to show the little feet you always find on the Andresen iron.  Both the deep and wafer.

The last picture shows a marked Griswold #2 and Andresen irons side by side.  Griswold doesn't have the little feet shown by the arrows.  The earliest Griswold irons are not marked, but again don't have feet.

Tom

Tom

[C. B. Williams]

I have a couple of things to add to this thread. The first is a mailing box from Griswold to an old friend of mine, Frank Parke. It contains the 2 deep patty molds and were shipped directly to his address, here in Meridian. He gave these to me about 20 years ago. The post mark is dated Sept, 1949 and was 28 cents. So, we know that Griswold would sell directly to the public. I'm surprised that a company as big as Griswold would sell direct. Just an assumption, my guess is that Griswold did not have a retailer in Meridian at that time or they would have protected their retailer.

[C. B. Williams]

This next picture is the full set by Griswold, containing both the deep and shallow molds and a little pot made to heat the oil in.

[Tom Neitzel]

Thanks CB.  It helps show how helpful even the packing materials can be to understanding the history.  Cardboard boxes many times have the year of manufacture in logo on the back.

I'm going to post some pictures of what I think are the earliest Griswold Patty/Timbale box labels.  The boxes I've seen are always pretty rough.

if you look closely you may notice that the handles illustrated are the Andresen handles, not the ones that Griswold produced.  Wonder where they got the artwork?  Since Griswold made the Andresen cast iron wares between about 1905 and at least 1913, I assume they made the rosette irons for him and likely had the boxes made too.  The artwork cut would have been around for them to use.

You might also notice that the hints are "Eriely" similar to the Andresen hints.

I haven't looked enough to see when Griswold started offering these, but my guess would be around WWI, likely just after, but a search of old catalogs will tell the story.  If someone wants to look for me, it would be appreciated.

And thanks for posting the link on Facebook Cheryl.  I put this on the public side just for fun and was thinking about putting it on Facebook.

Tom

[Jim Fuchs]

  Tom, you ask a good question...when did Griswold start offering the patty irons. I did a quick check, and here's what I see so far. They don't show in Cat.# 40 (1904), which contains Bulletin W-2, I don't have Bulletin  W-3, but in Catalog # 45, they are shown in Bulletin W-4.
      Catalog # 47, is dated 1918, don't have catalog 46, and Catalog 45 (they are offered in this catalog) says on the back-"Production of nearly all of the items in this catalog were discontinued prior to 1915.  So it appears Griswold started offering them sometime between 1905 and 1916 . That's the best I can offer , FWIW. Maybe someone else can pin it down further.

[Tom Neitzel]

  Tom, you ask a good question...when did Griswold start offering the patty irons. I did a quick check, and here's what I see so far. They don't show in Cat.# 40 (1904), which contains Bulletin W-2, I don't have Bulletin  W-3, but in Catalog # 45, they are shown in Bulletin W-4.
      Catalog # 47, is dated 1918, don't have catalog 46, and Catalog 45 (they are offered in this catalog) says on the back-"Production of nearly all of the items in this catalog were discontinued prior to 1915.  So it appears Griswold started offering them sometime between 1905 and 1916 . That's the best I can offer , FWIW. Maybe someone else can pin it down further.

Thanks Jim.  Andresen's patent was in 1905, about the same time Griswold started making his cast iron, so I wouldn't have expected them to offer their own right away.  He was booted out in 1913 and I'm beginning to really believe that Western Importing fairly quickly looked for a different jobber.  A patent would have been for 17 years back then, but with Andresen out, and possibly on the outs with Western Importing, maybe Griswold started offering them in the 1914-1915 time frame.   Do we know what they did when the US really got into WWI (say 1917-1918)?

Tom