10 Rusty Cast Iron Pans in Your Barn Worth Thousands! (Here's How to Spot Them)

Forty years of picking barns and estate auctions across the Midwest taught me that the ugliest pan in the pile is usually the one worth keeping. In this video I count down ten rusty cast iron pans sitting in barns, cellars, and smokehouses right now that sell for hundreds, and in one case thousands of dollars, and I show you exactly how to tell them apart. We go through unmarked smooth-bottom pans, early three-notch Lodge, Birmingham Stove and Range, Wagner Ware Sidney, Favorite Piqua Ware, Wapak with the Indian head, both generations of the Griswold block logo, gate-marked nineteenth century iron, and the early Erie spider skillet that has crossed the auction block in the five figures. For every one of them I show you where to look and what you are looking at: the gate mark scar on the bottom, the heat ring, the size numbers, the logo generations, the handle ridges, and the small differences that separate a thirty dollar cooking pan from a serious collector piece. I will also give you the honest odds, because most old cast iron is just a good pan that somebody's grandmother used well. And I will tell you the two mistakes that destroy value before a pan ever reaches a buyer, including the one thing you should never do to a rare skillet. Before you clean out that barn or haul a box of iron to the scrap yard, flip every pan over and read the bottom. The markings tell you everything. Drop a comment telling me what you found and where you're watching from. I read and answer every single one. CHAPTERS 0:00 The feed scoop worth $1,250 3:38 Number Ten — the unmarked smooth bottom skillet 4:55 Number Nine — early Lodge — the three notch 6:14 Number Eight — Birmingham Stove & Range 7:35 Number Seven — Wagner Ware — Sidney, Ohio 8:52 Number Six — Favorite Piqua Ware — the smile 10:07 Number Five — the one I put back down 11:54 Number Four — Griswold — small block logo 12:59 Number Three — Griswold — large block ERIE 14:13 Number Two — gate marked — the 1800s 15:31 Number One — the early Erie spider skillet 17:01 Condition — where value lives or dies 18:45 Not A Conspiracy — an information gap