Sidney Skillet

[Mark Ritter]

Picture one, Wagner with large C mark

[Mark Ritter]

Picture #2 , Favorite#12 with scooped out handle and reinforcement pad.

[Mark Ritter]

#2 picture

[Mark Ritter]

Having a hard time showing the pad and rim in this light.

[Steve_Stephens]

I challenge anyone to come up with a fairly accurate Wagner skillet chart showing variations, sizes, and closely approximate dates.  Quite a chore I would say.  Looking at the red and blue books treatment of Wagner skillets it can get confusing and I think a LOT of variations are left out.  I think Dave Smith believes there were significant overlaps in production of some or many varieties whereas I feel that a changeover from one style/variation to another was done in a short period of several months maybe.  Who knows?  Wish I had known in the 1940s what I would like to know now and would have/would have asked old Wagner and Griswold employees some questions.  Why didn't I start collecting iron cookware c.1950 instead of coins?  Why didn't I also collect old fans back then?

Steve

[Mark Ritter]

I know , I am amazed at all the variation of all of these pans. I think you can find something different out there if you only look a little bit. I think that is what makes it so fun.  ;)

[Steve_Stephens]

I just came across this ebay pan.  Note the ERIE and WAGNER ghosts.  Interesting pan.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Wagner-nickeled-cast-iron-pan-SIDNEY-Erie_W0QQitemZ180154423650QQihZ008QQcategoryZ3631QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Steve

[Mark Ritter]

Wow Steve, I think that probably gets top place for throwing a monkey wrench into this conversation. That is impressive.

[Steve_Stephens]

Wow Steve, I think that probably gets top place for throwing a monkey wrench into this conversation. That is impressive.

If a monkey were to wrench this hobby away from us I think he could maybe make more sense of some of the strange occurances.  There are several scenarios of how the ghosts and even double ghosts came to be but which one is correct?

If you think you'll ever know all there is to know...well, that isn't so which keeps us on our toes and hanging from the trees by our arms and having fun.   Thanks to all of you who have posted photos; it makes it so much more interesting even if it may be a hassle to do.

Steve

[Dwayne Henson]

I asked David Smith to speculate why a Wagner would have a Sidney Ghost mark.

" A Sidney ghost would appear if a Sidney pattern was modified to be marked Wagner for use after Wagner sold the Sidney Hollow Ware foundry, or if that pattern was not being used at that location and Wagner needed a pattern for the Wagner foundry. It does get complicated"

I like that skillet Steve. Looks like there was a lot of selling of patterns in the early days.

[Harry Riva]

Interesting that the Wapak article states aall of the Indian Head skillets have the handle shown and were made in a size 13 and 14. Has anyone ever seen an Indian Head in 13 or 14? Ed A., Have you ever seen a different handle on an Indian Head? ;D ;D

Harry

[Steve_Stephens]

I've never seen nor heard of any indian skillet larger than a 12 and have seen whole sets from 3-12; nothing outside of those numbers.  The only different handle is on some no.8s.  Basically the same handle shape with different details.  Ed Allspaugh posted one somewhere here yesterday.

[Ed Allspaugh]

Ed A., Have you ever seen a different handle on an Indian Head? ;D ;DHarry

 Not just the handle, pert near the whole darn skillet. Gonna take my trough and beveled handled Indian heads to York for those who ain't seen them. You gonna make York Harry?

[Harry Riva]

Doesn't look like I'll be in York
Harry