The Little Bail-Handle Pot Marked Only "Wagner"
Bean Pots & Kettles, Attributed Makers, Wagner Specialty & Variant Collection, SSC Museum Collection Steve Thaman Bean Pots & Kettles, Attributed Makers, Wagner Specialty & Variant Collection, SSC Museum Collection Steve Thaman

The Little Bail-Handle Pot Marked Only "Wagner"

A small cast iron bail-handle pot from Steve's Seasoned Classics carries a single clue on its underside: the word "Wagner" in flowing cursive script, with a script "2" — and no "Ware," no "Sidney, O.," and no stylized single-"W" logo. That absence is the whole story. Under the trademark-dating framework maintained by The Cast Iron Collector, Wagner's mark "consisted solely of the word 'WAGNER'" for roughly its first thirty years, and only became "Wagner Ware" about 1914, with the iconic logo arriving around 1922 — so a "WAGNER"-only script mark points to the Sidney, Ohio foundry's earlier lettering period. This deep dive separates what the mark can establish (Wagner Manufacturing Company, founded 1891 in Sidney, Ohio) from what it can't (a precise year for a bail-handle pot of this exact form), and flags the open questions honestly for the next collector who spots the same script on the bottom of their own piece.

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