Where Has All The Iron Gone?

[Russell Ware]

I came across this ad at a recent sale. I hate to think about all of the items I am currently looking for and can't find, because they were turned into tanks, jeeps and bombs.

[Valerie Johnson]

Well...just look at it this way...they may have saved you from having to learn German or Japanese.

What is lost to us is what makes what we have more desirable.

[Paul Okarma]

Ever see the picture of the mountain of scrap with all the cookware in it for the war effort?

[C. Perry Rapier]

Ever see the picture of the mountain of scrap with all the cookware in it for the war effort?[/quot
Hello Paul.  Good to hear from you.  I thought maybe you went to your beach place and just said you ain't comin out.

And that picture you are talking about is on here somewhere. If it's the one I'm thinkin, it's aluminum. And it's got fencing all around it to keep it from spilling over.

[Steve Butler]

Sure wish they would have missed just one Lodge 16" deep camp oven so we could see it.

[Frank Dimos]

Folks are still scrapping it today. A friend of my wife's recently approached and asked her if her cast iron cookware was worth anything as scrap. It had alot of crud on it, but there were two dutch ovens and 5 skillets in various sizes, including Wagner, BSR and Lodge. I bought them from her.

I buy alot of utility pieces just to save it from the junkyard.

[Corinne Wetzel]

Here are a couple of photos.  Most of the photos I've seen have been aluminum (like the one Perry mentioned here on the forum), but the one below with the scrapped stoves has plenty of iron.

[Paul Okarma]

The one I'm thinking of is a mountain of, I thought, black iron.  I've looked for it before, but could never find it again.

[Cheryl Watson]

http://www.griswoldandwagner.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1386079606/0#0

[Robert Bearfield]

i also heard that 20 or so years ago, there was a drive or collection to send cast iron pans to poor south american countrys. 

[C. Perry Rapier]

I seen this piece sell sometime back. And it was Germany. And it was made during World War One. Germany wanted everybody to support the war and they too had scrap drives for the war effort. This pan was made by Germany to give to households when they donated kitchenware to be recycled to support the war effort. The pan was pretty neat and it was well marked. It was an honor to have one of them because it showed your patriotism and support for the war. I saw it sell and it was pretty neat. I would have liked to had it. I THINK I have seen one sell on ebay in fact. And I think the piece was made out of some kind of copper something or other. Not exactly sure of that. Somebody else might know.  :-/

[Daniel Webb]

I've heard that a lot of the scrap collected during WWII wasn't used for anything as it was just that... Scrap.  Only the copper, newspaper and rubber was of any real use, while aluminum proved almost useless.

While it had only limited affect on the war effort, it was certainly a morale boost for the citizens of the U.S. whom thought they were providing value service to their nation. The only tragedy was the number of historical items, such as antique gates, old bells, and Civil War canon, that were uselessly sacrificed for the war. 

[Cheryl Watson]

I believe that a multitude of Historical documents would say otherwise...  that the scrap drives during WWI and WWII did in fact go to the war efforts.

Many Iron Foundries converted production to manufacturing items other than what they normally produced.

Ditto for Aluminum production companies.....

[Frank Dimos]

Yep. You can actually tell the time period of old aluminum pieces based on what the lids are made of. For example most Guardianware, pre WW2, had aluminum lids. During and after, glass lids. Direct result of the war effort to conserve aluminum.