Griswold and Wagner are the two names a person hopes to read on the bottom of a black skillet. They are not one maker, and they are not a quality grade. Griswold’s foundry was in Erie, Pennsylvania. Wagner’s was in Sidney, Ohio. For a long time they were competitors. By the late 1950s they were not: Wagner had already changed hands, Griswold’s Erie production ended in 1957, and later pans carrying the Griswold name were cast in Sidney. A booth that says “Griswold or Wagner, same thing” has skipped the only fact that makes a sold listing usable.
This note is the comparison. The Griswold skillet guide is the condition check for one maker: pitting, warp, and the size number on that pan. The Wagner guide is the other maker’s marks and failures. Do not average them. A kitchen aisle full of black iron is three or four objects, and unmarked is one of them.
The first split is the word on the iron
Turn it over in the light. You are looking for a name, a city, and a style of letter, not a color of rust. Griswold uses its own name, and on the pieces made in Erie it is entitled to the city. Early skillets say ERIE, sometimes with almost no other word a casual buyer notices. Later Erie marks say GRISWOLD. If the bottom says WAGNER, it is not a Griswold with a funny font. It is Wagner. If it says nothing, you have an unmarked pan. Unmarked is allowed to be a good cooker. It is not allowed to borrow a marked price.
The stylized Wagner mark is the one people mean by “the Wagner logo.” A large decorative W does the work of the two words Wagner Ware, and under it, on the classic version, SIDNEY -O- with the hyphens around the O. That arrangement was in use from the early 1920s into the late 1950s. It is not subtle. A block GRISWOLD over ERIE, PA is not subtle either. The mistakes happen when the bottom is photographed from too far away, or when a seller types both names into a title to catch both searches. Those titles are bad comps. Skip them when you are reading sold listings.
Ghost letters are a real trap, and they are not the same as a pan with two intentional logos. Early Wagner patterns were sometimes made by borrowing an Erie pan, and a faint Erie ghost can sit under a Wagner mark because of that. Collectors know the ghost. It does not make the skillet a Griswold. Read the mark that was meant to be read. Two clear, intentional logos on one bottom are a different, later object, from the years when one owner had both names. Say both names if both are really there. Do not say both names because you are unsure.
How Griswold’s marks change
Erie first. The early skillets are the ERIE marks, including the forms collectors call a spider or a plain Erie stamp. You do not need the nickname. You need a photo that shows the word ERIE clearly, because that word is the identification and the dating clue. An Erie mark is not a small-logo Griswold. They do not share a sold column.
Then the Griswold name, in a sequence collectors have sorted by the lettering. The slant logo is the italic one, used from about 1906 into the late 1920s, generally with a heat ring. The large block logo is the heavier upright lettering, roughly the 1920s through the 1930s, heat ring on many of them. The small block logo is the later Erie mark, from the late 1930s until Erie production ended in 1957. On the common skillet sizes the small logo is a smooth bottom. Large skillets can still have a ring. A photo that shows “small logo” without showing the bottom is a caption, not a mark. Photograph the whole bottom so the lettering size is obvious next to the helper handle.
The cross in the Griswold trademark shows up in the logo on a great many of these. It is part of the mark, not a separate religious souvenir and not a Wagner feature. Wagner’s W is not a cross. If you are squinting and inventing a cross in a pit of rust, stop and clean nothing yet. Shoot it in a raking light first. A wire wheel is how logos disappear, and a disappeared logo is how a marked pan becomes unmarked in your listing.
After 1957 the Erie foundry was done. Pans marked Griswold after that were made in Sidney. They often say Made in USA. The old pattern-number style gives way, on many of them, to a size in inches. Collectors generally do not treat that Sidney iron as the same thing as an Erie small logo, even though the name Griswold is still in the mold. When you comp, keep Erie small-logo iron away from Sidney-era Griswold. The photo of the bottom is what lets a buyer know which one you have. Your certainty, without the photo, does not.
How Wagner’s marks change
Wagner Manufacturing was in Sidney from 1891. The earliest marks are the word WAGNER in plain or arched letters, then Sidney in the address, often as SIDNEY, O. Those early bottoms are a different search from the stylized logo, and they are less common in a typical thrift bin than the later mark. Do not call every Wagner “the stylized one” because that is the picture you have seen.
The stylized Wagner Ware mark with SIDNEY -O- is the long middle of the company, from about 1922 until the end of the 1950s. Placement moves. On some skillets the logo sits high, toward the edge. On some it sits nearer the center. Heat-ring skillets with a size number are the earlier part of that stylized run. Smooth-bottom skillets with a catalog number are later, generally from the mid-1930s on, still with the same basic logo. The four-digit catalog number is a Wagner habit. It is not the inch size. A number 8 skillet and a catalog number in the thousands can both be cast into one pan. Put both in the listing if both are there. Do not replace one with the other.
Made in USA appears on Wagner as the century goes on. Sidney eventually drops off some later marks. A Wagner that says Made in USA and does not say Sidney is not automatically a fake. It is a later mark, and it needs its own comps. Pattern and quality opinions about “late” iron are allowed. Pretending late iron is an early Sidney -O- skillet is not.
The 1891 trap sits in this later period. Wagner used its founding year as a trademark. The line sold as Wagner’s 1891 Original belongs to the centennial era, produced in the 1990s at the Sidney foundry until that foundry closed, not to the year 1891. A buyer who adds a century because of that number is reading a slogan. Say 1891 Original if that is the mark, and do not translate it into a manufacture date. The same caution applies to any “since 1913” you see on a vacuum bottle, which is a different Stanley and a different guide. Iron and a thermos do not share a factory just because a first name does.
Heat rings, smooth bottoms, and the number that is not inches
A heat ring is the raised ring on the bottom of many vintage skillets, a remnant of cooking on a stove that was not a flat modern burner. Griswold’s slant and large-block skillets usually have one. Wagner’s earlier stylized skillets often have one. Smooth bottoms show up on both makers later: Wagner’s familiar smooth stylized skillets from the mid-1930s, Griswold’s small-logo skillets on the common sizes. So a ring does not mean Griswold, and a smooth bottom does not mean Wagner. The name means the name. The ring means you should say ring or smooth in the listing, because collectors split those sales.
Size numbers are the other shared habit that people convert badly. Both makers used a size number that is not the inch diameter. A number 8 is a number 8. Measure the diameter if you want, and label the measurement as a measurement. Later pans marked in inches are telling you they are later. That is useful. It is not a correction of the old number, and it is not permission to retitle a number 8 as “ten inch” because a tape measure almost said so.
National, Wardway, and other Sidney-era names exist on iron Wagner made or branded. They are not Griswold and they are not a blank. If the bottom says National, search National. A dual mark of National and Wagner is a known Sidney form. Photograph it whole. Cropping to the famous half of a dual mark is how the wrong buyers arrive.
Lodge and the other unmarked or three-notch pans are the rest of the bin. A modern Lodge is a fine skillet and a current retail object, with a maker you can still buy new. It is not a disappointed Griswold. Compare it with new Lodge if you are buying it to cook, which is often the correct use. Asian import iron and store-brand iron sit in the same pile. No name, no marked price.
What actually moves the two prices apart
Maker and mark, first. Erie slant, Erie large block, Erie small logo, Sidney stylized with a ring, Sidney stylized smooth, late Made-in-USA, and 1891 Original are different comps. Mixing them is how a common smooth Wagner gets priced as an early Griswold, or the reverse, depending on which headline the seller saw.
Size, second. The everyday numbers are the market most people are in. Very small and very large numbers are a different search. A waffle iron, a dutch oven, a gem pan, and a skillet do not share a price because they share a logo. Name the form.
Condition, third, and it is the same physics on both makers even when the comps are not the same. A dark even season is use. Orange pitting is iron that is gone. A crack at the handle is a crack. A pan that spins on a flat counter is warped. Those faults do not care which city cast the pan. They do change which sold listings you are allowed to cite. The Griswold guide goes into that cooking-surface check. Use it on a Wagner too, and then comp Wagner with Wagner.
Restoration changes the pan and the buyer. A half-stripped skillet is a project. An intact season is what a cook often wants. Do not grind the logo to make the bottom “clean.” You would be deleting the identification this article is about.
What a photo can and cannot settle
A photo of the whole bottom settles the name, the city, the lettering style, the ring or the smooth, and any catalog number or inch mark in the mold. That is the dating a camera can do. Worth can read a clear Wagner or Griswold mark from that frame and give you a range for the pan in the picture. It cannot feel a wobble, tell deep pitting from a dark season in a muddy overhead shot, or promote an unmarked pan because you hope the logo wore off.
Shoot the bottom in a low side light, the size number on the handle or in the center, and the cooking surface. Then search sold listings of that mark and that size, not of “old iron.” Erie and Sidney had different molds and, for most of their lives, different owners. The year they ended up in one company is the year the marks get easier to confuse, which is why the photo has to show the letters, not the story.