I have purchased and restored two wagner ware #3 skillets. They were both pretty crusted with build-up. Upon restoration I noticed some differences in the words: Wagner Ware. Pardon my ignorance as a newbie, Does anyone know which is older or possibly have any info on the change in font or differences? Both are 1053's but, Notice one has a style variation on the top of the W and a subtle difference in the shape of the G. Also one has a letter under the smaller 1053 and the other has a letter on the bottom of the handle. Hopefully the info and pictures do justice. Thanks.
-
Check out Amazon Haul, a new shopping experience offering a wide selection at ultra-low prices, with many items costing $20 or less, with free shipping on orders of $25 or more.
-
If a web search for the answer to your cast iron cookware question has brought you directly to this forum, the information you seek may be covered in one of the many reference topics featured on the main website.
Quick Links: · Main Website · How to Identify Unmarked Pans · All About Cleaning & Seasoning · Reproductions & Counterfeits · Commonly-Used Terms
Wagner Ware #3 Variations
- Thread starter Steve H
- Start date
Any group of the same brand size and type of pieces from the pre-automation "vintage" era is going to have some variation. Patterns and the markings on them were created individually, by hand. If you notice on your two pans, the R and E in WARE are also slightly different. I would say, if the handle designs are the same (not shown in photos), they are from the same period of production, based on the weight of the trademark and the font of the catalog number. Earlier Wagner TMs and CNs were bolder and deeper than the later production, whose patterns' markings are thinner and lighter, and appear more to have been stamped into them. The use of letters after the size, catalog, or pattern numbers was common to most makers, serving to make each working pattern unique, so that defects could be more easily traced to which pattern or foundryman was the cause of them.
Thanks Doug, I did notice that on the R and E. Thanks for all the info. I understood and have read all the info on the numbers and letters. I just didn't know if the placement in a different location or the font variations could help date an item more specifically, however, based on what you are saying is the pan with the deeper trademark logo is more than likely the earlier piece where I would've thought it was the other way around. But hey, that's why I ask. Thanks again.
Steve Stephens
Member
You will see some Wagner pans of various types with deeper and hand written look compared to the shallow and typewriter written look. The former is earlier and worth searching out. My Dad has a Wagner No.3 skillet like yours but without the 1053 catalog number. In it's place is just a big "3" and it's an earlier pan than the catalog number pans. Cat. Nos. started in 1923-24.
BTW, the reverse is true of Griswold. Their earliest examples of the cross-in-double-circle trademark, the "slant" logo, are quite thin-lined and shallow compared to later versions of it and the subsequent large block TM. Only when they switched to the the small block TM did theirs come to have the finer, stamped look.