I'll start by saying that although it has an inset heat ring and 3 notches in the heat ring... it is NOT a lodge. Lots of oddities with this one.. size on top of the handle, bottom of the handle is similar to BSR, but it does flatten out at the sidewall... the three notches.. in the wrong places... I would have thought I'd have seen ones like it before... but this is a first.. and I have two of them... exactly the same.. bought at the same auction in southern illinois.
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Anybody Want to Take a Guess on This One?
- Thread starter D_Madden
- Start date
I'll start by saying that although it has an inset heat ring and 3 notches in the heat ring... it is NOT a lodge. Lots of oddities with this one.. size on top of the handle, bottom of the handle is similar to BSR, but it does flatten out at the sidewall... the three notches.. in the wrong places... I would have thought I'd have seen ones like it before... but this is a first.. and I have two of them... exactly the same.. bought at the same auction in southern illinois.
Since this is a "GUESS" post suppose we all could theorize most anything. There were several skillets that had three notches placed at 120 degrees apart but they also had straight raised lines leading toward the center of the skillet and also an outer raised heat ring with breaks where the raised lines lead inward. Some collectors labeled this type skillet as the "Mercedes Skillet" simply because it takes the appearance of the Mercedes Benze auto-maker. Besides the proclaimed BSR skillet, Wagner/GHC made a similar skillet shown on P. 235 of the BB except the handle design was different to the regular skillets.
Again...just a "GUESS", but think a local foundry (or someone experimenting with cast iron design). used a Wagner skillet as a base skillet and incorporated the 120 degree break in the heat and are probably laughing at all of us trying to I.D. something that was never produced by a major company dealing in C.I. products.
I come across some of these oddities from time to time and if they are of good quality I will clean and season them and re-sale without any proclamations as to maker.
Again...just a "GUESS", but think a local foundry (or someone experimenting with cast iron design). used a Wagner skillet as a base skillet and incorporated the 120 degree break in the heat and are probably laughing at all of us trying to I.D. something that was never produced by a major company dealing in C.I. products.
I come across some of these oddities from time to time and if they are of good quality I will clean and season them and re-sale without any proclamations as to maker.
To have started with a Wagner, they would have had to add the inset heat ring and build up the bottom of the handle to create the ridge, both probably more involved than the usual copycat would be willing to do. Using a BSR as a starting point would be my guess.
I have one of the little wagner 'mercedes' pans... that would be a lot of modification to get the look of the #8 that I posted.
I'm stumped. At first I thought ok, someone just filed off the heat ring in three spots on a bsr to mark as theirs and its a one off... but I bought two at the same auction and they are marked the same... they were cast that way. (these came from southern illinois and I've seen pictures posted from someone else (also asking about identification) and they said they bought theirs in southern missouri...
I'm stumped. At first I thought ok, someone just filed off the heat ring in three spots on a bsr to mark as theirs and its a one off... but I bought two at the same auction and they are marked the same... they were cast that way. (these came from southern illinois and I've seen pictures posted from someone else (also asking about identification) and they said they bought theirs in southern missouri...
David P Fortin
Member
Could be Asian. I have read about a place in Tiwain and also one in Korea that made a lot of copies and they used a Lodge for the design. If the notches were offset than that is probably what it is.
I've seen lots of 'asian' copies of 3 notch lodge pans... and they always have the notches in the normal places (9, 12 and 3 oclock)... sometimes they add an extra notch at 6... but I've never seen an asian version or any version before that had 3 notches in these positions. and nothing else about the casting makes me think asian... the casting quality and finish don't seem to match to what I'm used to seeing from korea or tiawan pieces from the 1960's or 70's.