Newbie Member with a question about the Iron Mountain Series

[Joe Sweet]

Hello all!
First let me say this forum seems to be filled with great people who easily share information!  Very refreshing.
This is my first post so PLEASE forgive my ignorance.  I'm trying to find a number 10 and number 12 Iron Mountain skillet to add to a few given to me long ago.  Just not sure what is a fair price to pay for either in excellent condition.  I realize finding them locally vs on ebay may bring different pricing but I was just looking for a fair range.  Thank you for your input.
Best,
Joe

[Roger Barfield]

Joe, you might check the completed listings on ebay.  As far as prices in your area, any time I see Griswold at an antique store they are really high. Maybe someone in your area will see this and respond.

[Joe Sweet]

Thanks Roger.

[Adam Hoagland]

[size=12]In my opinion, maybe $40 and $50 for the 10 and 12, respectively.  I don't know if you'd find them for that, especially not on the internet, but the trick to buying IM is to wait until you find it being sold by someone who doesn't know that it's made by Griswold and has it priced as an unmarked skillet.  Of course, maybe ignorant sellers like those are a breed dying as quickly as hopeful tight-fisted buyers like me.  (Then again, I don't have either of those sizes in IM, either, so...)[/size]

[Joe Sweet]

Thanks Adam.  And, by the way, I'm in your camp...I tight fisted hopeful buyer!

[Gregory Turner]

Does anyone know or have a complete list of IM pattern numbers? I am looking at trying to collect as many pieces as I can. I have seen about 15-20 different pattern numbers listed on eBay. I don't have anywhere near that many pieces of IM, but it would be great to know what pieces are out there.

[Gregory Turner]

Btw, is the #12 part number 1084?

[Cheryl Watson]

Yes... a #12 is 1084.

Some past discussions:

http://www.griswoldandwagner.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1461526377/1#1

http://www.griswoldandwagner.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1387855975/2#2

[Adam Hoagland]

[size=12]Gregory, I have an Excel spreadsheet list of IM p/ns, and with the blessing of the moderator(s) of the forum, I'll post it for you and for anyone else who wants to see it.  But I hesitate, since some people might consider it to be subordination of the blue book (a.k.a. Smith and Wafford's The Book of Griswold and Wagner, 5th ed.) since that's where most of the information came from.  I'm personally of the opinion that this forum would benefit from some sort of on-line Griswold p/n database, but I've heard it argued that posting that info freely would negatively affect sales of the blue book, and I see the wisdom of the argument.  So, since I don't want to stumble into an unintentional ethics violation, I'm gonna wait for the OK from the PTB before I post anything.

But do buy yourself a copy of the blue book.  It's worth the price.  (And no, I'm not the guy selling it.)[/size]

[C. Perry Rapier]

As with most  things in life, knowledge is power. And IF you can get these two pieces for Adams price, good for you.

At that price I would buy a pickup truck load of them I have a set of them. IMO ANY good number twelve cast iron skillet is worth fifty dollars, let along a marked one. And probably half the cast iron folks don't even know what an Iron Mountain is, not even considering the other noncastiron folks.

The hardest ones to get, for me, were the number four and the number fourteen. These came in sizes 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,12, and 14. Good luck to you and I hope this helps.  :)

[Joe Sweet]

Thanks and that does help a lot.  Still searching.  They are out there, just depends how much you want to pay for them.

[Gordon Hochstetler]

I really like the Iron Mountain series. From an old advertisement I've seen all the Iron Mountain pieces are:
Skillet 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, chicken fryer
Skillet Lids 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, chicken fryer
Round Griddles 8, 9
Long Griddles 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
Dutch Ovens 7, 8, 9, 10

Any skillet lid other than the chicken fryer and maybe the 8 is worth it's weight in gold. Long griddles are hard to find and last I heard no one has given proof of ever actually seeing the 11 but it is in the ad. Dutch ovens other than 8 are hard to find.
From my experience 10 skillets normally go for $75-100 and the 12 somewhere around $200.
If you do some searching you can find the pattern numbers either in the book or someone out there has a compiled list, neither of those are mine so I can't share it here.

[Adam Hoagland]

Long griddles are hard to find and last I heard no one has given proof of ever actually seeing the 11 but it is in the ad.

[size=12]I've also seen the ad you speak of, and I agree with what you're saying here.  There's an interesting p/n discrepancy, too, that reinforces, albeit slightly, the notion that the 11 may not have existed...

I own an IM #7 long griddle, and it's p/n is 1077.  I think there's one pictured in the blue book, too.  I once saw an IM #9 long griddle at a flea market, but it was badly pitted and I left it where I found it.  It was a 1079 p/n, though.  Assuming sequential p/ns, which are not at all the norm for the IM series and may be a baseless assumption, that means that the #11 would likely be a 1081.  However, the IM #6 skillet is a 1081, and the ad implies that both were being made at the same time.

Of course, the slant logo Griswold No. 11 long griddle has a p/n that isn't in line with its smaller siblings, so maybe the IM 11 did, too.  It's just something that grabbed my notice.[/size]

[C. Perry Rapier]

Hello Gordon. Hello and welcome to WAGS. I am somewhat familiar with your area. And about the IM pieces. I'm not quite sure that I understand what you are saying about the IM series. So I'm gonna go out on a limb here. There are a lot more IM pieces than what you list in your post.  :)

[Adam Hoagland]

I really like the Iron Mountain series. From an old advertisement I've seen all the Iron Mountain pieces are:
Skillet 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, chicken fryer
Skillet Lids 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, chicken fryer
Round Griddles 8, 9
Long Griddles 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
Dutch Ovens 7, 8, 9, 10

So I'm gonna go out on a limb here. There are a lot more IM pieces than what you list in your post.

[size=12]Are there?  There are more unmarked Griswold items than that, but not all unmarked Griswold pieces are Iron Mountain pieces.  Save for the unmarked trivets that could be sold with the IM DO's, what other IM pieces are there that aren't on Gordon's list?

I don't think that those Good Health-mimic unmarked skillets and DOs with Good Health p/ns are truly Iron Mountain, and I don't think that the 7/8/9 unmarked Victor-ish skillets with 754/755/756 p/ns are truly Iron Mountain, and the same goes for that 3 and 4 pair with the unusual handles.  I know Griswold made unmarked waffle irons, but again, I never heard that one was considered to be Iron Mountain.  There's a Red Mountain series, I think, but I'm so tunnel-visioned on Griswold that I'm not even sure who made it.

Gorden's pretty much listed the ones I know about, but I could be in the dark, and I know your collection is bigger and older than mine.  Are there a bunch of Griswold-made Iron Mountain pieces out there that are little known?[/size]

[Mark R. Smith]

Red Mountain was made by Birmingham Stove & Range BS&R.

[Dwayne Henson]

The finish on those pieces matter.  Iron Mountain styled items were offered in two finishes, polished, which was called Iron Mountain and unpolished which was called Unground Cookware. Got these from Steve.

[Adam Hoagland]

[size=12]I never saw the one on the right (unground IM) before.  Thank you for posting these; that's interesting.

New information.  It's why I pay my dues.

Any idea on a date for these two pages?[/size]

[Dwayne Henson]

No idea on the date. I do like how it shows the  polished items with Red Mountain labels on them and the unpolished have no labels on them.

[C. Perry Rapier]

Those two IM pages came out of one of the Griswold Catalogs. Which one, I can't remember right off the top of my head.  :-/