Dating National Skillets

The same authors contradict themselves in the red book, giving National dates (in more instances than the BB) of the earliest 1914 to 1930 for most and 1940s for some. In that book they also date the dual WWSO logo with the c/n as 1930s to 1940s, but the c/n is generally presumed to have come into use on Wagner pans around 1924. The problem lies in that older catalogs show illustrations not photographs, so pinpointing years is near impossible. There's no reason to believe a 10 year gap existed in the production, so I would discount the BB dating as proofreading error. Since, except in only the rarest of instances, Nationals are of the outside heat ring design, I tend to think that if they made it to the 1940s, it wasn't for very long. Catalogs I have dated 1924, 1927 show them, and an aluminum catalog dated 1936 has National branded pieces. A Wagner catalog presumed to be from 1941 does not show them at all.
 
My 1880 CI stove is a National. Were they that slow getting into the hollowware business or is it two different companies?

Hilditch
 
The National being discussed was made by Wagner. I assume the National stove is/was an entirely different entity.
 
Cool, thanks Doug. I can see how it would be tricky to pin this down. It's hard for casual collectors like me to know for sure when your info is on the web and easy to access, but other info is in the so called "bible" of CI, but then also you need two or five different books and then THEY say different things.

What you said makes sense to me so I'll go with that. What I think i've got is a National without the dual logo but it's still in the lye bath. We'll see soon.
 
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