14 Rusty Cast Iron Pans in Your Garage Worth Thousands (You Might Own One)

Under the grime on an old skillet is a small mark almost nobody cleans far enough to find. One like it sold at auction for $1,050. Most old cast iron is worth $30 to $80, but a small handful carry real money, and nobody ever teaches the marks. This video counts down fourteen rusty cast iron pans that could be sitting in your garage right now, and exactly what to look for on the bottom of each. It runs from unmarked smooth-bottom skillets and early three-notch Lodge pans, through Birmingham Stove & Range, Wagner Ware Sidney, the Wagner pie logo, Favorite Piqua, the Wapak Indian head and the Griswold block logos, up to the gate-marked pans of the 1800s and the Erie spider skillet, which has sold for as much as $10,000. Also covered: how to spot a pre-1890 gate mark, why the giant hotel sizes are worth many times a common number eight, the rare finish people throw out for looking fake, and the cleaning mistakes that wipe out most of a pan's value before anyone ever appraises it. If there is old cast iron in your garage, your basement, or a box from a family clearout, turn it over before it goes anywhere.