Daniel, those pans were all made for Sears by Griswold under Sears' tradenames. The Best Made is the earliest of the three and the Merit the latest and hardest to find. Probably 4-7 Puritan wheat pans for every Merit show up. Other than the names there are no differences between the two pans. But the Best Made pan is different and corresponds to the Griswold No.2700 wheat stick pan. I don't know values but do know they vary a lot on ebay and are usually less than in the books unless a bidding war erupts.
A 1923 Sears catalog shows a Puritan waffle iron while the 1929-31 catalogs show a Best Made waffle as well as skillets, corn stick pan (wheat pattern), popover and griddles. 1932 catalog shows Best Made skillets and some other pieces as well as some Puritan items which were now a lower cost line and, I think, made by Favorite (actually Chicago Hardware Foundry Co. since Favorite was bankrupt by 1933 or 34). But the Puritan wheat stick pan in 1934 was Griswold made and had replaced the Best Made wheat pan by Griswold. The '37-38 catalog shows Challange as the Good line, Merit as the Better line, and Best Made as their Best quality but it's hard to tell the makers from the photos. Most of this stuff is hammered and I would guess made by Chicago Hardware Foundry or Wagner but the waffle irons look to be Wagner made. The Merit wheat pan remained by Griswold. By 1939 it looks like Wagner was making Sears iron cookware and only Merit and Challange tradenames remained. More than one foundry often made iron for Sears under a Sears tradename such as Puritan. You will find a lot of skillets and some other pieces marked Puritan that are made by Chicago Hardware Foundry co. Look for a 4 digit pattern number (maybe three digits on some pieces) for proof that the piece was made by Griswold. I only have a few sheets copied from old Sears catalogs mostly from the 30's era but not all years or pages so can only get a general idea of what was made and when.
Steve
