Featured Exhibits

Curated Highlights from the SSC Museum

Complete Size Runs • Rare Variants • Historic Forms • Midwest Foundry Heritage

Featured Exhibits are the guided entry point to the SSC Museum. While the Collection Archive documents individual pieces in detail, Featured Exhibits are curated to help visitors experience the collection as a museum: complete narratives, historically significant groupings, and artifacts chosen for what they reveal about American craftsmanship and domestic life.

These exhibits are built for visitors who want more than a list—they want context, continuity, and meaning.

What You’ll Find Here

Each Featured Exhibit is designed to document and interpret a specific historical theme or collection focus, such as:

  • A complete size progression from a single maker

  • A rare logo or transitional marking era

  • A specialty form (griddle, roaster, chicken fryer, waffle iron)

  • A regional foundry tradition or lesser-known manufacturer

  • An artifact that captures a particular period of American kitchen history

Each exhibit is preserved with SSC’s preservation-first standards and documented with museum-level detail.

Preservation-First, Always

Every exhibit is supported by the same non-negotiable SSC standards:

  • No grinding, sanding, or metal removal

  • No power tools on historic cooking surfaces

  • Environmentally safe, non-toxic preservation methods

  • Documentation before and after preservation

  • Original machining marks and foundry texture preserved

This is conservation, not refurbishment.

Current Featured Exhibit

Wagner Ware Sidney -O- Size Run (No. 0–14)

This exhibit documents the complete production size range of Wagner Ware’s most historically significant skillet line, manufactured in Sidney, Ohio during the early twentieth century.

Explore the full size progression—from the diminutive No. 0 toy skillet to the rare and imposing No. 14. Complete size runs rarely survive intact, making this exhibit an uncommon record of both manufacturing intent and domestic use.

Each documented entry includes high-resolution photography, pattern and logo identification, accurate production dating, casting and machining analysis, full restoration notes, and cultural context.

View the Wagner Size Run Exhibit

Upcoming Exhibits

The SSC Museum is continually expanding as pieces are documented and preserved. Upcoming exhibits will highlight additional makers, forms, and historical themes, including Midwest foundry production and rare regional artifacts.

As new exhibits are published, they will appear here first.

Explore Beyond the Exhibits

Featured Exhibits are designed to be a guided experience, but they are only one part of SSC.

Begin Your Visit

View the Wagner Size Run | Browse the Collection Archive | Read the Library