Waffle Iron Name Take Your Pick

Jeffrey R.

Well-known member
I am starting to spin my wheels with trying to ID this Un-marked waffle iron. Might be a case of one foundry making waffle irons and putting different names on them, something like Griswold & Alfred Anderesen / WI Co. Or the original base getting broken and someone finding any replacement that worked, or the Companies changed and formed new partners. I have searched and searched and this is what I am coming up with. First here is mine, you can see it is unmarked.


Only has Philadelphia on the base.
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/antique-waffle-iron-cox-primitive-1812370657

Has Philadelphia and A & J. Cox on the base. Handles and numbers of all 3 match. Mine has only the numbers. Now here is the curve ball.

Cox Whitman & Cox Philadelphia. Handle and numbers match?
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/antique-cox-whitman-cox-philadelphia-1840821719

I found another one. Johnson Cox & Fuller.

Just night be another one??

Your thoughts appreciated.
 
I just bought one of these at an auction... a friend had an interest in it so I sent it to him... I have no idea if the base and paddles are a correct match or not... but they were sold together.


you can see one of the hinges had been repaired... I believe the friend already bought a replacement set of paddles... he was going to clean them both up and decide which one he wanted to use. apparently in the company's time line there were a couple of mergers and buy in s and buy outs.. .hence the different name configurations.
 
So part of being a collector is being a researcher. This is the part my hands stay clean, no digging in old attics, no scrubbing old iron, no seasoning iron.

I am going with #3 in my first post and agreeing with D_Madden. This was my thoughts along, but the other 2 things do happen so need keep the eyes and mind open.

Companies changed and formed new partners.

Short time line.

Joseph Cox Born in NY 1819, and by early 1840s was engaged in stove making with his brother David in Troy, NY.
Abram Cox born in NY 1816, also engaged in foundry and stove making in Troy, NY around 1837. In 1847 tired of working for others he branched out on his own as a sole trader, eventually in partnership with F.H. Warren & Alex Morrison in Troy, Ny until his departure for Philadelphia.

The Cox brothers experience in the stove foundry business in Troy, NY & wholesale and retail trade in Philadelphia equipped them well to go into large scale manufacturing in Philadelphia on their own account. Both brothers joined partnership in 1853 - 1853, A. & J. Cox. Sometime in 1854 they took on a new partner P.F.Hagar. They parted ways in 1857, and in 1858 the 2 brothers formed a partnership with John Whiteman, Cox - Whiteman - Cox. That partnership ended with the deaths of Joseph Cox & John Whiteman in 1881. Abram Cox passed in 1885.

The last waffle iron I show is a Johnson - Cox & Fuller That was David Cox in Troy, NY 1850

By the looks of things the Cox brothers shared the waffle iron rights to its use. My thoughts.

Ok, so what does a stove maker have to do with a waffle iron you ask.

A lot of foundry / stove makers also made hollow ware to go along with there stoves, this is the waffle iron fits in

Credit, Howell Harris, Thank you Doug
 
that's interesting... now I'm kind of wondering if these were really really common at some point in the late 1800's... there seem to be a lot of them still around.
 
D_Madden,

I used to have the same waffle iron. The hinge was fixed on this one too. I never could find a maker either. My base was a little different.

https://imgur.com/gallery/kHWa3Eh

Are you saying that your base was different due to it not being marked with makers name?

Yours looks just like mine un-marked, but same everything else.

I attribute it to being an early piece made by the Cox Brothers, possibility starting in the 1840s and also from Troy, NY.

---------- Post added at 03:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:44 PM ----------

that's interesting... now I'm kind of wondering if these were really really common at some point in the late 1800's... there seem to be a lot of them still around.


First made by the Cox Brothers, possibility starting in the 1840s and also from Troy, NY. The molds stayed with the "Cox" side of the business as the names changed and kept making them until the end of the business, Not sure when that was. But Cox, Whiteman & Cox was still in business in 1878.
 
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