Hammered Skillet - Not Chicken Fryer

[Cindy Overton]

   Hello All,

     I found this neat old skillet laying around outside of an antique place.   It was calling for help and needed a real good home so it just followed me home!
      It was pretty cruddy, and is now in the process of getting cleaned up.  She's cleaning up real nice, not finding any pitting, but as you can see, she is not quite done yet.

    I have not seen one that is hammered on the outside before.  There are no marking at all other than what you see.  The inside is extreamly smooth, but the outside bottom of the skillet is almost wrinkled looking.  There are no cracks at all....this wrinkling is how it was cast.
   The hammer dents are not even, some are in a row of three, and a few areas the rows grew to 4.  Not all the dents are uniform either as you can see.

    Any ideas on this neat old piece, age, maker, good or junk??  Comments or info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Cin

[Cindy Overton]

Sorry...forgot to tell you it is 11 inches.  Here is another pic.

[Cindy Overton]

another one

[Cindy Overton]

One more

[Steve_Stephens]

Cindy,
I don't know the maker of your pan or if I have even seen one like it before.  I think I have but the hammering on your pan is pretty widely spaced.  Hammered cast iron cookware was more common in the late 30's and 40's and many companies made it;  Griswold with medium hammering, Lodge with fine hammering, Chicago Hardware Foundry Co. with shallow or deep larger hammering and probably a few others.  There is a thread here somewhere with photos of several different Chicago Hardware pieces made for Sears.

Steve