martin alum. 4 1/4 in.covered skillet

[mississippi_slim]

hi every 1..all i can say about this toy is that it sure is smooth to be what i would call a backyard special..if its a fake my 6 year old grand daughter can make mudpies in it...i had rather do that than some 1 buy it and get mad..any way this has been a learning thing..i have already saw that i have passed up a lot of money at auctions and yardsales...oh well...jimmy

[Troy_Hockensmith]

Wonder what the odds are with a recast with someone using an original as a pattern?  Maybe it was a Martin experiment.  It certainly didn't get far from home if it was. Certanily unique.

Remember the Wagner 1891 toy set. IT ONLY CAME IN CAST IRON. However, the employees made it in aluminum anyway, and sold these sets to some members of WAGS who were fortunate enough to be at the first WAGS convention in 2003, SO, it is entirely possible here as well. What a company does and what it says it does is often two different things.

Then I gotta ask. If it's not an original to the factory and someone counterfeits it in the factory, how is that different than someone counterfeiting it outside the factory. Two, how would you know the difference?  If you remember Steve talking about the gated ERIE. He said it wasn't gris. My argument, to his dismay I might add was how do you know it wasn't made in the factory.

 Bottom line this is an odd bird but how do you confirm it as a true martin? I can;t answer that and I doubt anyone else can unless they produce a catalog. ANything else is just opinions.

By the Way Jimmy I'm not poo pooing your piece as I think any piece that is new and different and stimulates conversation is cool.   I'm just not gonna swallow it hook line and sinker. It would be nice to know more about it.  

[mississippi_slim]

thanks troy..i agree 100 % but i am sad to say that this is way over my head..and i will also say that if there was 100 water mellons in a pile and if there was one green one in the 100 and you gave me my pick...when i got home and cut it..lmao it would be the green 1...jimmy

[Paul Hummel]

Wonder what the odds are with a recast with someone using an original as a pattern?  Maybe it was a Martin experiment.  It certainly didn't get far from home if it was. Certanily unique.

Remember the Wagner 1891 toy set. IT ONLY CAME IN CAST IRON. However, the employees made it in aluminum anyway, and sold these sets to some members of WAGS who were fortunate enough to be at the first WAGS convention in 2003, SO, it is entirely possible here as well. What a company does and what it says it does is often two different things.

Then I gotta ask. If it's not an original to the factory and someone counterfeits it in the factory, how is that different than someone counterfeiting it outside the factory. Two, how would you know the difference?  If you remember Steve talking about the gated ERIE. He said it wasn't gris. My argument, to his dismay I might add was how do you know it wasn't made in the factory.

 Bottom line this is an odd bird but how do you confirm it as a true martin? I can;t answer that and I doubt anyone else can unless they produce a catalog. ANything else is just opinions.

By the Way Jimmy I'm not poo pooing your piece as I think any piece that is new and different and stimulates conversation is cool.   I'm just not gonna swallow it hook line and sinker. It would be nice to know more about it.  

                                                                                                                                                     

Do you mean like this gated ERIE.  Could it have been made at Griswold MFG. Whoever did this did do it in good quality counterfeit or not.

                       

[Troy_Hockensmith]

Wow Paul, Now that is cool. I was referring to the skillets. I can't recall a gated ERIE oven. Have you posted that before? I thnk you might have and I just forgot. Course, like Clark I tend to keep forgetting what I know.

There are folks on both sides of the fence on if these are or are not from the ERIE foundry. SOme have decided they are not and try and say it's fact. Now granted the research involved i.e handle timing etc.  is a pretty strong argument but much like this Martin you can't say it was made in the martin plant and you can't say it wasn't you can only say it was probably not the intent of them to mass produce and distribute IF it was.   I still can firmly say, I don't know one way or the other. Regardless there ain't many around.  

[C. Perry Rapier]

Troy you raise a good question. Well, I would say this, that if it was made in the factory, with the factorys equipment and patterns, then its the real deal, whether the company itself officially sanctioned it or not.  And the word counterfeit would not even come into play.

To me a counterfeit is when someone tries to copy. When the employees make it under the conditions above, they are not copying it, they are making it.

As an example, at the Dave Schultz auction which sold his "Favorite" collection, they had a set of brown porcelain toys. Favorite never made a set of porcelain toys, but these were done by the employees at the factory, as the story is told anyway, and they were perfect in every way. They brought 11 thousand dollars. There was also a black iron set, and it brought 6 thousand or right at it.

My point is, if somebody takes a piece and uses that piece as a pattern, then its a copy, a reproduction, a fake/counterfeit, but if its made in the factory, then I don't think so. Of course this is my opinion, and I am sure there are others that are quite valid as well.

[C. Perry Rapier]

Hello Jimmy, it looks like you're gettin richer by the minute with that quarter investment you made. The way its goin you should have bought two of them.  ;)

And by the way, if you already said somewhere, I am sorry, but did you ever put a magnet to this to see if it stuck or not. I remember somebody said something about it, but I don't remember if you come back and said you did or not. Thanks Jimmy. As you can see, folks think its pretty interesting.  :)

[Troy_Hockensmith]

Troy you raise a good question. Well, I would say this, that if it was made in the factory, with the factorys equipment and patterns, then its the real deal, whether the company itself officially sanctioned it or not.  And the word counterfeit would not even come into play.

To me a counterfeit is when someone tries to copy. When the employees make it under the conditions above, they are not copying it, they are making it.

As an example, at the Dave Schultz auction which sold his "Favorite" collection, they had a set of brown porcelain toys. Favorite never made a set of porcelain toys, but these were done by the employees at the factory, as the story is told anyway, and they were perfect in every way. They brought 11 thousand dollars. There was also a black iron set, and it brought 6 thousand or right at it.

My point is, if somebody takes a piece and uses that piece as a pattern, then its a copy, a reproduction, a fake/counterfeit, but if its made in the factory, then I don't think so. Of course this is my opinion, and I am sure there are others that are quite valid as well.

But the problem Perry is, how do you know if it was an employee in the factory other than the seller saying this is what the guy told the guy that sold it to me.  :-/ :-?

They been sellin snake oil for years. I guess in your example you just have to decide if it's worth an additional 5K (that's 5 thousand dollars) to believe the story that came with it. I know the seller is glad. I juat have to assume the buyer believes what they want to and as long as everyone is happy there is no one to complain.

Take this alum piece. If we say yeah the grandson of the guy that made it in the factroy said it was made in the factory we can say it's worth quite a bit.

[C. Perry Rapier]

Well Troy, I am sorry, but, I guess I'll have to take a Steve Stephens on ya, in that, if we had an original, and we measured it, and then compared those measurements to the piece in question, that would tell us the story.  :-/

[mississippi_slim]

hi troy..what i said was that i bought it at a yard sale last fall..paid 25 cents for it..i figured at the time that it was 1 of 15 million..i knew that china and other places counterfitted cast iron and every thing else but i never would have thought that someone would go to the trouble to make one little piece for thier kid to play with..this skillet when i bought it still had dried dirt inside where they had been making mud pies..and when you look close it has had a lot of handling..lol last week i would have traded it for rambler hubcap...but let me also say that i have had many dollars worth of fun out of this skillet in the last few days no matter what the final verdict is..thanks jimmy

[Troy_Hockensmith]

Jimmy,
 I wasn;t trying to change your story. I was just trying ot make a point. It is a good casting, at the least the pictures make it look that way and you also say it is. It's hard to say where it came from, we can only assume and make educated quesses on it.  My opinion is it's a very interesting and unique piece but we are not sure of it's origin. I guess it's glass half full or half empty. In these type situations I tend to take the position of rather than assume it's real and  prove it's not let's look at it with raised eyebrow and try to prove it is. I put it in the suspect catagory until there is something to indicate otherwise.

Again, it's a cool piece though and you will certainly not loose on it.

[Troy_Hockensmith]

hi every 1..a couple of years ago i saw a whole set of this

Jimmy,
 What exactly do you mean by "whole set of this"?

[mississippi_slim]

troy we was at a antique store sometime back and there was a martin childs set in a wooden box with the martin logo on the box ..i said it was alum..but my wife was the one that carried it up front to the desk to get the price and the wife said it was 2 heavy to be alum.we are going back to the shop again but i bet it is gone by now ..i was interested in it gor our grands to play with but $300.00 was too high...jimmy

[Troy_Hockensmith]

Man I would have like to at least see pictures of that set.

[C. Perry Rapier]

Well Jimmy, I don't know if you are going to sell your little skillet or not, but, thanks for bringing it here and showing it to us. As you can see, it stirred up a lot of interest and debate. So thank you again.  :)

[mississippi_slim]

yes perry i am gonna sell it but its sorta like going to the dentist,i will put it off lol for a day or two..will a martin collector tell me what year the martin foundry closed ? and let me say this is a wonderful site and seems to have a good supply of nice people that loves what they collect and are willing to share what they know...would there be any site on the net that could tell me anything about a stamped out tin skillet with SNOW KING BAKING POWDER in raised letters on the handle ? thanks jimmy

[C. Perry Rapier]

Hello Jimmy, well, according to the Red Book, of Wagner and Griswold, which also includes Martin, at the time of the printing, "Martin Industries" was/is still alive and well. Martin Industries was the resultant merger of Martins different manufacturing entities. Like all present day companies it has had to evolve in order to remain in busines, now what they make today, and where they are located, I do not know.

As far as a website that would know about your stamped metal skillet, I don't know there either. I do know that several different manufacturers made them. It sounds to me like you have an advertising piece that was made for a particular company to promote its product.

[Roger Barfield]

Martin stopped producing cast iron cookware in 1953.

[Ed Allspaugh]

OK, I'm gonna beat a dead horse here. Jimmy, with all due respect have you tried the magnet on this piece? It just does not look aluminum to me and I  have not seen the magnetic question answered. Sorry if I missed it.  I have the full size Martin safety skillet, thats why I'm very interested in whether it's is iron or aluminum toy you have. Thanks,, ED

[C. Perry Rapier]

Ed, Jimmy said, in another thread, that it is definitely aluminum and that he tried a magnet on it and the magnet will not stick.  ;)