Hello from Arizona

Bonnie Scott

Active member
Hello all, I have been acquiring cast iron pans for about 20 years and have quite a stack of them. Today while searching antique stores downtown I happened upon a 3 legged Dutch oven type pan with a bail handle. It has a gate mark on the underside. I am eager to find out information about it but it doesn't have any letters or numbers on it. It looks like a cowboy camp pot. I will post a picture when I figure out how to do that on here.

---------- Post added at 10:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:23 PM ----------

The pot I found at the antique store looks like this one on ebay except mine doesn't have a lid.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Cast-Iron-O...884?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4d2c8aeccc
 
In the era when bottom gated pieces were the norm, there were hundreds of small foundries in operation. Without specific identifying markings, who made them and exactly when is impossible to determine. Only by certain physical characteristics can we occasionally estimate a period or perhaps a region of manufacture.
 
I decided to go ahead and clean all my CI since I was cleaning the antique store find. Oh my gosh I am a hoarder. I am up to my elbows in oven cleaner. I know I should sell but they look so nice when they are all cleaned up. :-( I haven't made it to the 3 legged pot yet. It's big so it is on the bottom of the stack.
 
The oven cleaner did wonders for the camp stove. It did not make it something I would cook on so I started sanding. In doing this I have released the smell of 100 plus years of fish fry's. yuck. There are no makers marks on it anywhere.
 
Yes...the bottom of the pan was all jagged and bumpy. I don't like it all jagged. I saw the dude on youtube make his brand new lodges all smooth and thought it would help make this one usable.
 
Measures like sandpaper and grinding are usually best kept to new pieces having no chance of collectible value. Fine sandpaper can often be used in "last resort" type situations on already polish ground areas of vintage pieces, but to use it on "as cast" areas changes the original surface texture and appearance, something which collectors consider to be damage.
 
Thank you Doug for the information and thanks JBPoole for the chuckle I got from your O face. After cleaning with oven cleaner and boiling vinegar water in my old pan I realized this is a good old workhorse of a pan. There were a few little stalagmite looking things on the cooking surface that just had to go. I intend to season it and use it for chicken fried steak. The three legs make it sit perfect on my gas stove and I like it. I have never sanded any of my iron before but this little sharp thing had to go.

---------- Post added at 10:17 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:14 AM ----------

One more thing. I have a large Wagner lid that fits the pot well but I would really prefer to have one of those old lids you can pile coals on. (not a new lodge) Do folks on here ever trade?
 
Oh that's a beauty. I don't recognize the pattern. I will have to go over to the Pyrex pattern reference and check it out. My daughter and I have a little shop in a antique mall in Phoenix.

---------- Post added at 02:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:34 PM ----------

It's called crazy quilt and that one is up to 50$ on ebay. I better not share that picture with my daughter or she will NEED it. :)
 
That is a nice collection of Frigies you have there. It's getting harder to find those in the wild, even harder to find with the lids. My daughter just posted pictures of the camp pot on instagram. Would you mind taking a look at it and letting me know anything you might know about it. Thanks, Bonnie. By the way that crazy quilt has a couple of days left on the auction and it's already at $50. I am going to follow it to see how high it goes.
 
Looks like another of those mid to late 1800s pieces from some small unknown foundry. Appears to be fairly well-made for what it is.
 
My desire for instant gratification and my love of shiny stuff nearly drove me to the home depot for a cup brush to put on my drill. I took a little time and read some of the posts on here and it changed my mind. I started asking myself what would Grandma do? I decided Grandma would have sprayed some more oven cleaner on it and gone about her business so I reckon I will do that too.
 
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