Original prices paid for pans in late 1800s

L

Linn Stevens

New member
I was looking at some of the antique cast iron online seeing some significant prices and wondering what it would be like to be alive in the late 1800s (1880 - 1900) I wonder what I would have paid for a brand new skillet (Piqua, Wagner, Griswold, Wapak, etc) and where I would have purchased it.

I wonder what the actual cost would have been when they were first produced way back when? Thanks. I imagine they were purchased at general stores?
 
Doug D. said:
Many of the ads on this page are old catalog pages showing pricing:

http://www.castironcollector.com/ads.php
Click to expand...

And to expand on this a bit, for fun...

Looking at the image "(1902) Pacific Hardware & Steel, Griswold pg. 649", if I am reading correctly, a dozen #8 skillets was $6.00, or 50 cents a piece. Wolfram Alpha is super awesome and can do the conversion:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=US$0.50+1902+dollars+in+2014

So, in 1902, a #8 skillet would cost $14.24 in today's dollars. I am guessing that is wholesale since it's by the dozen. I just checked Walmart, and a new Lodge #8 is $15.92 retail. So that is surprisingly close.
 
Exactly, John. It was seeing new Lodge 12" on sale for 14.99 at my local grocery that had me wondering what it would be like to go shopping for cast iron 100 years ago.

Wo! Man, how cool is that archive of turn of the century cast iron adverts. That is p-r-e-c-i-s-e-l-y the type of thing I was hoping to find! I had no idea that archive was available. Thanks so much for the link, Doug.

---------- Post added at 12:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:07 PM ----------

So that answers that -- I would have paid less-than or no more than .70 to .80 (not adjusted for inflation) cents for the average cast iron skillet from the 1880s on up through the 1930s.

I assume/guess the general public viewed cast iron pans as "the norm" in cook wear then. I've always wondered when the transition from cast iron to stainless steel began.
 
Linn Stevens said:
Exactly, John. It was seeing new Lodge 12" on sale for 14.99 at my local grocery that had me wondering what it would be like to go shopping for cast iron 100 years ago.
Click to expand...

Only problem, That Lodge on sale for 14.99 does not match the quality of the iron from 100 years ago.:mrgreen:
 
RickC said:
Found a bunch of old CI ads while searching through Google Books a while back and "Clipped" the ads. Uploaded HERE
Click to expand...

Awesome! Thanks, Rick. Now I fear I'll start collecting old newspapers as well. I really enjoy the 'time travel' seeing those old adverts.

---------- Post added at 10:18 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:36 AM ----------
Jeffrey R. said:
Only problem, That Lodge on sale for 14.99 does not match the quality of the iron from 100 years ago.:mrgreen:
Click to expand...

Exactly. It was that very question that led to my collecting. I did a basic experiment cleaning both my modern 12" Lodge, bought this year at Walmart, and a vintage pan using the same cleaners, brushes and number of scrubs and though I know little about the science of iron-oxidation the Lodge continued oxidizing (i.e. continued giving off an unending iron residue/black rust) while the vintage Piqua pan, once all the non-iron gunk was removed, gave off just a fraction of the iron residue that the Lodge did.

On a 1 to 100 scale rating the oxidation/black rust produced by each pan with repeat scrubbing using different household cleaners, the Lodge was an 85 while the Piqua a barely notable 5 or so. I couldn't get the Piqua to oxidize and give off the same amount of iron-residue/black rust that the Lodge did.

Perhaps it's age, quality of manufacturing, quality of the sand casting, machining, etc... or any combination of these factors but what I can say definitively is that there certainly was a difference in how the repeated scrubbing was almost "wearing" the Lodge iron (the surface began to look and behave almost like extremely dense, yet porous, clay as opposed to impenetrable iron if-that-makes-sense) while the vintage Piqua surface looked and behaved more like thick glass. I could definitely get the Piqua to oxidize but not on one-tenth of the scale of the Lodge.

Of course, once correctly seasoned both will do just fine but that little experiment was all I needed to see.
 
Linn Stevens said:
Perhaps it's age, quality of manufacturing, quality of the sand casting, machining, etc... or any combination of these factors but what I can say definitively is that there certainly was a difference in how the repeated scrubbing was almost "wearing" the Lodge iron (the surface began to look and behave almost like extremely dense, yet porous, clay as opposed to impenetrable iron if-that-makes-sense) while the vintage Piqua surface looked and behaved more like thick glass. I could definitely get the Piqua to oxidize but not on one-tenth of the scale of the Lodge.

Of course, once correctly seasoned both will do just fine but that little experiment was all I needed to see.
Click to expand...


It is all in the Good Old Iron. Not todays junk iron.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top