Mourning in PA

Hello skillet-heads! I found this site recently while researching vintage skillets/fryers, after a terrible terrible tragedy occurred in my kitchen. My #8 nickle plated Griswold large block logo smooth bottom 777 fryer with matching 1048A high-dome lid died. It split right down the middle while cooking a steak on the stove top. I'm a broken man.
I want to say I'm a user, not a collector, but I've bought several pieces in the past month trying to replace my old friend. Nothing's worked.
I'm not a cook by trade, but I love good food and I do most all of the cooking in my home, from breakfast to Thanksgiving dinner. My first piece of cast iron was an unmarked (?) skillet belonging to my first wife, which had been her grandmother's. I think it was similar size to a #9. Over our 8 yrs together I loved it for steaks and porkchops. After our divorce I bought a modern Lodge 12" skillet, but the thing was/is a brute. Heavy, 80grit rough. Better off as an anchor. Then at a fleamarket I saw a shiney nickle deep skillet with a lid. It had impressive lettering all over it, a truly glass-smooth interior (hard to see any utensil marks even), and a $30 price tag. I had no idea who Griswold was but I gave the man a $20 and it was all mine. The 50lb Lodge went to the garage where it collected nuts and bolts for a living.
This was about 7 years ago, and I have cooked on that 777 every day since,.... well, until... I called it the Magic Pan because everything that came out of it was perfectly cooked and delicious. Did I mention that I'm NOT a pro. cook? Well the last time I used it I was cooking a steak in it, over med heat (I have used it on med-hi to blacken and seer hundreds of steaks/chops/fish/critters over the years) and there was a huge shatter sound, like throwing a toilet out a window onto the sidewalk (which I have recently done).

Dead Pan.

So I found this site while looking for a replacement. Wrinkled Willy has some nice pieces, but everythings $295 and up (for a deep #8 or 9 with lid), and not even Nickled. I don't like the chrome pieces. I got a nice #8 704A large block logo skillet, but it's just not the same and I'm going to re-sell it. I bought a 5qt new Lodge deep skillet with lid, polished the inside super smooth, and while I shouldn't admit it on this forum, it's great to cook in. Deeper and wider than my 777, and no fear of warping or cracking it, but my wife has a hard time handling the weight,and it has no charm. I'm still searching.

Brother I feel your pain. The attached pic (brace yourself) is my old #12, outer heat ring, no name. Thin cast and half the weight of most I've seen, and I was only out $30 myself. About a year and a half ago I had a fire, they got it out before the house burned down but the kitchen shelf with all my cast iron collapsed from all the water. I suppose I was lucky, as I could have lost everything, but this hurt. I doubt I'll ever find its equal, certainly not for $30. I also attached a pic of it frying four huge burgers like the champ it was. I even took it to work one night, it did pan fried walleye in half the time of the junker they had. the pain will fade, but it'll never fully go away.