Wagner Tennesse Centennial Toy Skillet

[Will Ryan]

I found this and thought it is pretty interesting.  Can anyone give me any info about this little skillet.  How should it be cleaned up?  Is this a well known piece?

[Mike Shoughrow]

Hi looks to be a piece made for the Tennessee exposition. The exposition was basically a huge 6 months party celebrating Tennessee's 100 years in the union. Wow calm down Tennessee. Lots of companies set up booths during the exposition to promote there business. At the end of the day the exposition was more about celebrating the industrial or machine age. This was a time when fairs where popular like the Columbia exposition and the worlds fair etc. wagner would have been advertising and selling there. A great little piece of Americana. Just my thoughts.

[Valerie Johnson]

I guess it pretty much nails the date down to 1897 give or take a few months

[Harry Riva]

Those are hard to find skillets. I'm not up on values but I'm pretty sure they aren't cheap.
Harry

[George Gardner]

Nice item.  Shown in the Red Book (p. 87) with a listed value of $450 - $500, but other Wagner toy pieces have been selling for 1/2 of the Red Book value, some pieces even less, lately.  As Harry said, these one's you don't see much so the value may hold to the higher end - all depends on demand at the time it goes up for sale.