Sidney vs. Sidney Hollow Ware Co. pieces

Travis S

New member
Hey everyone, just signed up here as I wanted to begin a discussion about some information I have been seeking about Sidney and Sidney Hollow Ware pieces.

About a year and a half ago, I was fortunate enough to find a #10 Sidney Hollow Ware Co. skillet on a popular auction site (you know the one ;)) for a very reasonable price. As I was working on a collection of Griswold nickel pieces at the time, I didn't think much about it at first - however, the SHWC skillet soon became my favorite user.

More recently, I have begun to seek out additional pieces of SHWC to join the lone skillet that I have. It seems however that information on the company and its products is a little hard to come by, and depending on who you ask you get different answers regarding SHWC trademarks and whether certain pieces were indeed made by Sidney, or by Wagner when they purchased the Sidney foundry.

I know that pieces marked with Sidney Hollow Ware Co., are indeed produced by that company. I also have recently seen trademarks on skillets such as the Sidney arc and the Sidney block (such as those shown on other sections of this site), which are very similar to trademarks used by Wagner in their early days. Some collectors attribute these Sidney pieces to Wagner, others say that these pieces are indeed also manufactured by the SHWC. So I was wondering what the consensus was, and if anyone could enlighten me, and even offer some sort of definitive reference on where the info came from if possible.

Personally, it is my belief after looking into it a bit, that these pieces are also manufactured by SHWC, and that during the transition between the Sidney and Wagner switch, that Wagner used the same molds Sidney did, and they simply ground or cut the Sidney out of the mold and replaced it with the Wagner trademark. I have been able to find a few skillets with a Wagner block trademark, which were ghosted with a Sidney block which leads me to believe this may have been the case.

Any info appreciated, thanks in advance.
 
I'm not sure what is meant exactly in your last paragraph, re: transition and switch.

I've always understood it to be that the Sidney "script" logo and the block logo including the words "Hollow Ware Co." pieces were SHWC under the ownership of Philip Smith, and the others, with their various placements of "SIDNEY", smears, ghosts, etc. were the product of the foundry under Wagner ownership. Or they represented the use of the name as a brand by Wagner on pieces that could have been molded at either foundry location, and perhaps even after Smith bought the foundry back from Wagner (and presumably did not return to the manufacture of hollow ware).
 
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