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My $30 thrift store cast iron skillet turned out to be a 1940s Griswold
I picked up this rusty old skillet at a Goodwill in Des Moines for $30 just to have a beater pan. After I stripped it and reseasoned it three times, the markings came through clear as day - it's a Griswold #8 from around 1943. Cooks like a dream now, slides eggs around like nothing. Anybody else find killer old cookware hiding under crud?
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wright.michael2d ago
More often than not those old pans are way overhyped. People think vintage Griswold is magic but honestly modern Lodge works just as well for a fraction of the price. $30 for a beat up rusted pan that you had to spend hours stripping and reseasoning is not exactly a steal. New Lodge is like $20 and ready to go. Plus vintage cast iron has that weird bumpy surface from old casting methods, it's not as nonstick as people claim once you actually use it.
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sethr112d ago
Yeah but see I'm the kind of person who would buy that rusty old Griswold for $30 and then spend like three weekends trying to restore it, only to drop it on the driveway and crack it in half before I ever cooked an egg on it. So really the $20 Lodge is way more my speed because I can't break something that's already practically indestructible. I do think the vintage stuff is cool for collectors but for actual cooking my Lodge has never done me wrong. It's like people who swear by old hand planes vs modern ones, cool if you want to mess with it but I just want to make dinner not a project. Plus I got kids running around and I need a pan that can survive being dropped in the sink by a clumsy teenager.
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