Customer Reviews

The Book of Wagner & Griswold: Martin, Lodge, Vollrath, Excelsior

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This new book by the authors Smith and Wafford picks up where the old "blue" book stops. This book contains practically all new pictures and items which were not in the old book. Based on the title "The Book of Wagner & Griswold" the majority of the book contains information about Wagner. There is 124 pages which deal with Wagner Ware. The information contained is solid and not to be found anywhere else. Once again, this book becomes the Bible for collecting old cookware. The information on Griswold is not nearly as as long as Wagner. It is only 75 pages. There are many new items in this book which was not in the other books. There is quite a bit of information about aluminum Griswold items which is very helpful if you are collecting this type of cookware. Finally the sections on Martin Stove, Lodge, Axford, Vollrath and Excelsior(G.F.Filley) is great! For each manufacture it gives the history along with photo's/prices. Super information which I have not found anywhere else. I think this book is a "must have" for the cookware collector. It is a good companion book to "The Book of Griswold & Wagner." To be fully informed you really need both books. I have found these books by Smith and Wafford to be pretty close in the values of various items. Although variances do exist I have found these to be the closest out of all the cast iron collectable books available. I keep both of these books next to my computer and refer to them almost daily when shopping the internet for cast iron. A++++

This is the second book you should buy if you have any interest in collecting classic American cast iron goods. Collectors call this the "Red Book". The first book, "The Book of Griswold & Wagner", is called the "Blue Book", although it looks kind of turquoise to me, and is by the same authors. This edition, with a copyright of 2001, is getting a little out of date for catalog values, but still is a good indicator of relative value. It covers Wagner, Griswold, Martin, Lodge, Vollrath, and Excelsior. There is little duplication between the Red and Blue books, but together they are just a treasure chest of good clear photogrpahs and information that is not available anywhere else. The author is active in the major collecting societies and solicits information, including photographs and corrections, as each edition is prepared. (As an aside, it's hard to comprehend how someone could be critical of a book full of pictures and descriptions of collectable iron.)

It is really unfair to be critical of the catalogs values in such a work. They are useful in determining relative value and rarity, but the current marketplace must looked at to get the best indicators of value.

Unlike steve (ca) review, this book is considered the second book that all cast iron collectors must have. While some discrepancy on some values in the book may be present, values on most items are completely accurate. It is unfortunate that the other review destroys the credibility of this fine book. The "RED" book is the most complete and accurate book on the market for Wagner Ware collectors. This book and the "BLUE" book should be in every serious cast iron collector's resource library.

I suppose I'm being a little unfair to write a three-star review of this volume, seeing as I only collect Griswold and only purchased this book for that section alone. A person shouldn't berate a screwdriver, for instance, because it makes a poor hammer, and when you get right down to it, the red book is primarely a Wagner price guide, not a Griswold one. But still, in their zeal to write a second guide with a low percentage of repeats from the first, the authors have presented a Griswold section that feels more like a collection of leftover snippets from the blue book than like an independant guide of its own. One of its most serious flaws in my opinion is its lack of complete price lists for referenced series. The authors show a picture of an unlabled p/n 755 size 8 skillet, for instance (and then incorrectly attribute it to the Iron Mountain series in the caption,) but they neglect to give any pricing information for the size 9 and size 7 skillets in the same series. In the blue book, whenever they showed one size, they were pretty consistant with listing pricing for all sizes of that type. Here, they mostly just price exactly what is pictured. Being partial to the non-Griswold logo products, I'm glad that they included more pictures of Best Made, or Merit, or Good Health products, but I wish that they had included more price ranges on those products, rather than only pricing the size that they show in that particular picture. For instance, a picture of a #10 Merit skillet is shown without giving any pricing for #s 3-9 of the same series. (Ironically enough on that note, even though Merit and Puritan skillets have the same p/n and are essentially identical skillets, his price for the Merit #10 is only about 60% of his blue book price for the same Puritan skillet. That, I don't understand - it indicates that Merit and Puritan skillets don't share common prices, but fails to fill the rift in with a complete Merit price range.) Another issue with the Griswold section is that many of the pictures shown are cast aluminum products -- again, while it's true that they aren't duplicates from the blue book, they aren't necessarily what I was expecting to compose about a third or half of the material in a Griswold price guide. I might have liked to have seen more pricing information on pre-1957 small logo cast iron, too. I realize a lot of collectors avoid it, but it's nice to know how much less it's worth than its large logo elder siblings. And, a little more editing of captions would have been nice. Here and there they call something by the wrong name (for instance, a skillet cover is called a skillet, and so on.)

Maybe I'm just being picky, or maybe I was expecting too much Griswold information from a book that was published primarely as a Wagner price guide. But, speaking for the Griswold portion only, I was hoping for something a little more useful. What I got just felt like a loose grouping of everything that was left over from the first time out. It felt like the "deleted scenes" section on some DVD movies. I was expecting an out-and-out sequal.

Having said that, what I've glanced at of the Wagner portion looks good. I don't collect Wagner, so it doesn't really interest me. The same is true for the other non-Griswold brands covered in this book: I can't really rate them, because I haven't really tried to use them. Overall, I'd say that this is probably an excellent guide for Wagner collectors, and an interesting if not entirely useful guide for Griswold collectors such as myself.

Have found the book to be very useful in purchasing old cast iron cookware. Prices may be a bit dated but are still at least a relative guide.

Both this book and the "blue" book mislead readers by listing "price values" that are blatently low,-on the very uncommon items listed, even though the pricing errors were brought to both author's attention years ago. Many revisions later, they remain for the most part unchanged.
Shame on them.

If you like collections of photos, this book is great ... Hollow.