Vintage Clothing Irons,....?

[cowboy76]

Came back from a friend's place,....picked up some cast iron stuff for the wife and my Mom for Christmas.

While there, I saw a few old Vintage clothes irons. After looking at them I picked four out. Two old travel irons, one with bakelite handle.

Here are three of them as the other is just your typical "sad iron".

Take note of the BIG one with the OLD switch on it!! Like a frankenstein switch of sorts,..can't recall the proper name for te swtich, but it controlls the heat,..high or low.
Anyone have any info on that specific iron?? I've never seen one.

 

[imoldfashioned]

Nice looking irons there!

I use my grandmother's (1940's?) iron when sewing--the thing is so heavy it hardly needs heat to help press the seams. I'll try to get a picture up.

 

[cowboy76]

Nice looking irons there!

I use my grandmother's (1940's?) iron when sewing--the thing is so heavy it hardly needs heat to help press the seams. I'll try to get a picture up.

Yes I'd like to see it,...which model is it?

 

[Big Man]

Old clothing irons

Here are my grandmother's old irons. Talk about old - these irons really are. They are marked "Dixie" on the top of the handle and with the number "7" on the iron. My grandmother and grandfather started housekeeping in 1904, and they didn't get electricity until 1930. How long she used them past 1930 I don't know, but would suspect she finally gave them up in the late 1950's when she (reluctantly) gave up her old wood cook stove.

 

[dhermann1]

I saw a 1926 flick with Beatrice Lillie ("Exit Smiling"), where she's costume mistress for an itinerant acting troupe. They showed her in the railroad car, ironing away. As I recall she kept a rotation of 2 irons going, one in use while the other heated up on the stove. It was cool to see somebody actually demonstrating this, even if it was in a comedy movie.

 

[Bill Taylor]

Although sad irons were no longer used by my family when I was growing up in the 1930's, we still had a number of them around the house, and actually, even today, I have a couple or so of them. They make great door stops and weights. For some odd reason, though, I remember the "instructions" for cleaning them. When they were still hot, the bottom (sole, I think it is called) was cleaned by rubbing it over clean sand.

And also, sand is the method I was taught for cleaning cast iron skillets and pans. We still keep a supply of sand around to use for cleaning our cast iron ware (and we have a ton of it - most at least one hundred years old). My favorites are the cast iron "cornbread stick muffin" pans.

Bill

 

[Brad Bowers]

I have a neat streamlined General Mills dry iron that I picked up for working on hats. It's nearly impossible to find new dry irons today, and I needed something that gets hotter than a modern iron. I do need to have the cord replaced, though. Wish I could find an original stand to go with it.

Brad