Griswold waffle iron dating and info help please

[ThomH]

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Hello, i'm new here so please bear with me. So i'm having a hard time figuring out the date of this Griswold 8" waffle iron i purchased. The attached photo with the blue table is the one i bought. It doesn't have a manufacturing date like the photo with the red background. And there is limited info online on waffle irons. If it was a skillet or pot, it would be easier to figure out a general date. But with waffle irons, i'm having a hard time with a general time frame it was manufactured.
Info i know:
885/886 pans
975 base
wood handles

Thanks in advance for any info and links that have the exact answer.

 

[Doug D.]

Exact answers in dating cast iron cookware are exceedingly rare. It's a fair assumption that waffle irons with turned wood handles pre-date those with steel coil ones, although with the inception of the wire versions some were still offered both ways. The date on the example is a patent date not a manufacturing one, and refers to the cooling vent holes in the casting. Although Griswold didn't actually hold this patent, companies were known to use patents as a marketing gimmick to confer superiority on their products over those of their competitors. Griswold may have marketed irons with the cooling vent feature for some time without acknowledging Hollands' patent.

US905429A - Handle mechanism for cooking utensils. - Google Patents

Published collector resources date the coil handle version 1910s-1940s, so one could assume the wooden handle version is just slightly earlier, if not concurrent for some period of time. Note the different pattern numbers are largely a result of the leveling pins being moved to 8 and 4 o'clock to accommodate the bail handle base. A Griswold catalog dated 1912-1915 shows "American pattern" units with leveling pins at 3 and 9 with straight dowel wooden handles and no embossed trademark. A waffle iron bulletin dated 1926 shows sets with leveling pins at 4 and 8 with wire coil handles and the embossed trademark. Neither mention pattern numbers.