Griswold #7 slant ERIE question

[babyface]

I have recently acquired an early Griswold slant ERIE #7 skillet with very roughly cast handle and outside bowl surface. The surface areas are very porous and "pimply", not like any other Griswold's Ive encountered. It doesnt seem to exhibit severe deep rust or gas pitting such as is frequently encountered around the logo area on many pans, but is evenly "grainy".  However the inside cooking surface, and bottom bowl surface to include everything inside of the heat ring, is smooth as a baby's a**. After lye bath cleaning this pan, I dipped it for an hour in a vinegar bath, and quite a bit of liquified surface rust came off these rough surfaces. I'm wondering if this pan is the victim of rust (albeit only on the aforementioned surfaces), and if so; why is there none on the cooking and bottom surfaces...or was it just rough cast on the handle and outside bowl areas; having been highly factory ground and polished in the other areas? Has anyone out there ever encountered another Griswold like this? Any opinions or feedback is, as always, welcome. Thanks and best regards.

[Steve_Stephens]

Donald,
If you have another slant/E 7 skillet you could match up the rough one with a good one.  If the sizes are different by about 1/8" then the rough one is a copy.  But the smooth inside and bottom surprise me if it's a copy.  Can you post a photo or two?

Steve

[Thomas_Callaway]

I got one of those the other day. It was really gunked up and after I got it out of the soup I though "Man, that's the ugliest Griswold I ever saw." After further investigation I found several things about it that made me wonder if it was a re-cast. Metal inside the handle, overall rough appearance even on the sides on the inside. The bottom was smooth, but there was no evidence inside the pan of polishing marks. There was a hump in bottom on the inside that looked like a repair. There appeared to be a crack on edge opposite the hump but it's not, just a line on both sides. The "crack" doesn't go through the grinding marks along the edge. I plopped a #7 lid on it and sure enough it was too big. I am going to take a few pics as soon as I have a moment and post them.

I can't really blame the seller because it looked perfectly normal before it was cleaned. The TM, p/n and ERIE are well cast into the bottom and showed through the gunk really well. I was thinking it was probably an employee re-cast which would possibly make it one of a kind. Now that Donald has found one it's worth half as much. Half as much of nothing is still nothing though.  :-/

TC

[C. Perry Rapier]

T.C., it sounds like you bought that skillet because you felt sorry for it. BUT, besides what you just pointed out, she's cherry though huh?

[Thomas_Callaway]

T.C., it sounds like you bought that skillet because you felt sorry for it. BUT, besides what you just pointed out, she's cherry though huh?

Absolutely! Me an the fellers down at the antique shop was gonna advertise it as "one of a kind" and the "ugliest Griswold on earth". Maybe get a few hunderd out of it. But then old Donald goes and finds another one. There's probably thousands of em on the bottom of some river where they broke off the trot line.

TC

[babyface]

Hi Steve: Thanks for the reply. I measured the pan heat ring and outside bowl circumference against another #7 slant/E I have and they are identical. I really dont think this is a recast pan, pirated from an original Griswold.  I cannot attach pictures to allow you and other forum members to check out this oddball, as they need to be resized down and I'm not familiar with this procedure. This pan even feels strange picking it up and holding it since the handle is so grainy...unlike all the other Griswolds I've encountered.
Tom: Looks like I'm not the only unlucky owner of a poorly cast Gris. 7. Is yours also a slant/E? Maybe if we put the two of "em together and sell 'em as a set on ebay, we can get enough to buy one of them thar elusive Wagner smooth bottom #3's. Only question is who gets the Wag...me or you?