I agree. As an avid Cast Iron "enthusiast", I would say... GREAT observations and sound reasoning. Right on

if you drop cast iron skillet on hard surface it will crack or season it by putting in wood fire will crack it or heat up a electric stove with coil too high will crack a skillet

No way to get rid of the old casting trademarks. The #9 i just cleaned I thought it was cracked from the outside. Just a flaw in the sand cast. Lots of time some of this flaws can be caused by strange bits of metal in recycled cast iron. I have an old "made in USA" #8 sitting here right now to be scrubbed and reseasoned. Not going to strip it either. My older pans are a lot thinner and lighter than my new ones, but I still use my new model lodges a lot. Depends on what I am cooking. There are lots of experts out there, and someone may be able to tell you more about your pans. Thank you for the video, Mart

Lodge, and especially BSR, always did make pans a good bit heavier than the other companies.

Great information on cast iron. Makes your finds even better to have those unusual marks in them. Thanks for sharing. 😃👍

I have some older 3 notched pans too. Thanks Mart good stuff

Next time you remove a newly stripped skillet out of your vinegar bath, wipe it dry really well with a paper towel and once it is dry, then give it a spray with Canola oil cooking spray inside and out. This will prevent your skillet from flash rusting until you are ready to season it. Your 3 notch Lodge looks just like mine except mine has a small "L" on top of the 3 on the bottom. Your "crack" is from the molding process just like you said. My Vollrath has something similar on both sides. Since it was uniform I didn't concern myself with it. As to the BS&R, they were a lot thicker than other vintage pieces from Wagner, Griswold, or even Lodge and for this reason they don't crack or warp as much because they are thicker. Interesting huh? Love the video, so much to chew on, pardon the expression! lol And one more thing, I didn't know the Dollar Store had an equivalent product for Heavy Duty Easy Off Oven Cleaner that actually works. Nice tip!

Interesting. You go deep into the pan and company. I just love cast iron durability. I use one of my Mom's skillets. Wish I knew how old it is

Good stuff, Mart.... You got some unique finds there.... for sure!

That is a unusual casting issue in the Lodge pan 😲 I don't know a whole lot about cast iron pans, but I do know that the older lodges are smoother on the inside cooking surface than the newer ones are 😉

I think you are right about the date on the lodge. I think it is probably late 40s early 50s and it is definitely sand shifted. Like you I'm surprised that it escaped the inspection process but I suppose it can happen occasionally. The Birmingham Stove and Range is a century series from the late 50s or early 60s probably about the time when they started their disamatic process. At that time they increased the thickness a little bit in order to handle the automated process which was a faster Pace than the earlier series. Hopefully you are only dealing with rust and not heat damaged. It looks like rust to me. Really interesting. Thank you for sharing.

That is cool it does look like they tryed to band-aid it and didn't sand down. So very cool piece. One day that might be worth good money. Great find bro. God bless

Even with the slight imperfections, Season Em & Use Em, Sweet Iron Them Is ! Thanks Mart ! ATB T God Bless

Birmingham Stove an range

ManLand121 i do believe yes indeed absolutely without question Lodge does have a much higher quality cast iron skillet. My birthday in law still loves his that i got him last Christmas

you can season right over that

I'm going to throw this out, and will readily admit that I'm probably full of it. Lodge made their own skillets sold under their own name, as well as unmarked skillets sold through department stores as in-house products. But even those alternative skillets, particularly those from the 1940's and 1950's, are amazingly good, clean, well-cast, quality iron, milled inside. Whether sold by Lodge or sold by someone else, yours just doesn't look quite right. It looks to be low end, unfinished, almost homemade. Is it possible that someone local, a very small foundry, a smithy, even an individual, might have used a Lodge as a template to create a mold and cast one on their own? As an experiment? For local consumption, not nationwide distribution? Griswolds or Wagners were commonly used for copying, but Lodge would have been readily available and affordable. That might explain the very weird anomalies (a huge pseudo-crack, crude grinding, soft edges, etc.), as quality was never an issue. I just don't believe that Lodge, at any time, would have let something like that leave the factory. They would have melted it down, and used the molten metal to cast a better one. As I said, I'm only speculating.

yep ive seen that before ! Im thinken its japans steel ! poor quality >?? Im thinken thats why Trump dont want USA ships made for there poor steel ?