Dating Wagner Smooth Bottom Skillet

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C Carter

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Post in thread 'Janin Won an Auction Continued...Pan by Pan...'

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Hello Wagner 105.6 D. A weird thing happened as I cleaned this piece up. it was like a discolored patch on the bottom, so I worked on it thinking it was more rust. Now, if you look closely under the Wagner logo, there is a bit of a white patch. Any ideas about what it could be? Its still kind of there.

Hi, Janin,
Do you have an age on the Wagner 1056 (the last one posted in this thread)? It's a great pan, I have one with that same handle. From what I can find, it's between 1925 and 1940 (around 1930 from what I have been able to find). I can't find any information about that interesting handle and I can't find anything to narrow that date range (if it's even correct). There is never any information or even mention about that wide, flat, ribbed handle. Mine has an -O- rather than -0- and I have read/heard that the O vs 0 makes a difference in the dating. But nothing concrete on that either.
Thanks!
 
Wagner smooth bottom skillets, other than the #2 and #3*, with the Wagner stylized logo are dated 1935-1959. Earlier examples have the TM more deeply incised in a heavier weight with a sans serif font for the catalog number, while later ones have thinner, shallower markings and a serif font for the catalog number. Where that change falls is not certain, nor is when changes to characteristics such as handle reinforcement ridges might have occurred. A large sampling of skillets may offer some insights from which to try to draw a conclusion, but I would expect inconsistencies to exist that may make drawing definite conclusions unlikely.

I wouldn't put too much stock in statements about the capital letter O looking more like a zero in some cases being significant, although on the older, heat-ringed Wagners with the -O- it is more a circle than an oval. Being hand-incised in the patterns in most cases, there will be minor variations in the TMs that go unnoticed unless you're looking for them.

* There are no #2 or #3 heat-ringed Wagner skillets. Even before the advent of catalog numbers, ca. 1924, those sizes were smooth-bottomed.
 
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