Griswold #14

Yesterday I found a Griswold LBL #14. This was the first skillet of such significance I have seen in the wild. It was at the bottom of a stack in a vendors booth. A friend was with me and spotted it first and I thought there was going to be fight to grab it and rush to the checkout. When my friend exposed it I immediately saw a crack on one of the pour spouts. The strange thing is the price tag was $475 for a broken skillet. I know from experience that we pay outrageous amounts for rare pieces but I find it hard to part with that kind of money for a defective skillet. Can anyone explain how this piece in particular would bring such price?

My best guess is that it's because it doesn't cost the seller anything to leave a worthless skillet at that price and all sales are final.

Michael, I can't imagine anyone paying that much for a cracked skillet but I've seen people pay crazy money for CI lately. From a marketing perspective I'm thinking that skillet got your attention and brought you over to that sellers stuff so that alone is a good thing when your peddling CI. I suppose if I had it in a booth I would hang it up high like a big CI beacon.

Bonnie/Ty, You are both correct in the aspect of attracting people to that person's booth. Looking back on where the crack was makes me think something that big has to get out of the way of obstructions. Most likely there was something that slammed the skillet and seeing how the pour spout is the outer most part of a skillet, that was where it was struck. Makes me think that packaging something that large and fragile it would be best to frame it with a wooden structure and then bubble wrap it extensively. Otherwise the skillet had all the factory grind marks and no signs of pitting or warping. So goes another lost piece of vintage CI.