Spider skillet

Mark H

Member
Friday's are a good day to check into the shops as dealers get ready for the weekend. Found this one today. Unmarked with an interesting handle. Paid 25 for it. Cooking surface is perfect. It is going on the tug my son caps on. I see much use in its future. Well after I have a go at it.
 

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Cool piece and I love the long handle but I've never seen one with legs that short before. I wonder if this is what they call a hearth skillet?

Scott
 
That is a very nice looking spider skillet. Are all the legs original or are they ground, worn, or broken off. The reason I ask is a lot (not all) had longer legs to set it over the hot coals in a hearth.

I have passed up many because when folks started cooking from hearth to stoves the legs were not needed.
 
I wondered about that as well. I was think about throwing it into the lye bath but the seasoning is perfect so I think I will refrain. It does seem like the legs have been reduced. Clear iron there where elsewhere the carbon build up is consistent.
 
That could just be from friction dragging it across firebrick. They are usually either longer or shorter than that, though.
 
I have seen at an antique shop where all 3 legs were ground down. I asked the shop owner what happened to the legs, he replied that one had a piece broken off so he ground them all to the same height. He did not do a very good job and it still sits in his shop.

It can be expected to find legs worn, or one with a leg broken. Yes, it takes from its value, but not as bad as grinding them all down.

Yours might just have normal wear, like Doug stated from friction dragging it across firebrick.

Something to think about the fact that the some legs could have been eroded by the fire itself.

Not all hearths were of brick, a great many early ones were field stone granite.
 
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The reason I asked, or wondered is that even though it's gate marked the legs are round. I have one coming that has "D" shaped legs that I'm 95% sure are an indicator of greater age over the round legs. I know that different users treat their pans differently but that would take a lot of wear to shorten iron legs on fired clay. I'd think the brick would groove first. Now a broken leg I would understand filing them down to match.

Scott
 
Didn't say friction shortened them, only that it cleaned the tips down to bare iron.
 
My Grandmother had one just like that. She kept it on the hearth but I never saw her use it. She said it was her mothers and that she watched her cook in it often in the fireplace. When she passed I got all of her CI but never could find that piece. Still don't know what happened to it. Would love to have had it. Based on my Grandmothers age it would have been a one family owner from the late 1800's. O well, I have several of her other pieces that are around the same age.
 
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from the late 1800's.

This is an older solid handle example. The feet, legs, supports appear ground down. Some of these older examples have an attached spur added to one or more supports to vent the flow of the iron. Also common in the "upside down" handle spider skillets in the lost multiple moulds, copy cat, spiders. Most gated spiders are "slick sand" copies. Butt, the iron was better.....
 
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