What era does our kitchen sink hail from?

[Brinybay]

Getting ready to do a kitchen remodel. I wanted to swap out for a stainless steel sink because the white porcelain sink is hard to keep clean because it's white. Only method that works well is using bleach a few times a week.

My wife said unless it could be sold for enough to pay for the remodel, she wants to keep it. A contractor said it's antique and could sell quickly for good money. "Good money" is relative to the person, so I googled it and found the identical sink for sale, asking price $725.
http://www.historichouseparts.com/pdshop/shop/item.aspx?itemid=19638

So, the sink stays, and it is an antique, but I'm wondering from what time period? I've got two widely different estimates. The contractor said 50s, a plumber said the teens (as in 100 years ago). I'm inclined to think the contractors guess was more accurate because a lot of stuff in our house is from the 50s (including ourselves, haha), although the house is older (built in 1914). The sink measures 71" wide, 25" deep, and the backsplash is 4" tall.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That type of twin-bowl sink was common from the mid-thirties into the sixties. The postwar version is usually pressed steel covered with porcelain enamel rather than the heavier cast iron type common in earlier decades, and many if not most were made as part of an integral sink/steel cabinet unit. An iron version would likely be older than the steel kind, and would probably have the casting date molded into the metal somewhere on the underside of the bowl. Crawl under with a flashlight and see if you can see "02 25 39" or something like that.

Stainless steel sinks started to find their way into homes in the late thirties, and monel-metal had a brief vogue before that, but the white porcelain style dominated well into the sixties.

 

[3fingers]

I don't have any idea if this is universal, but the earlier sinks I have seen mostly have back mounted faucets. That may be a regional thing though. New ideas are slower to make it out into the hinterlands, otherwise known as around here.

 

[Brinybay]

I don't have any idea if this is universal, but the earlier sinks I have seen mostly have back mounted faucets. That may be a regional thing though. New ideas are slower to make it out into the hinterlands, otherwise known as around here.

The faucet is new, just installed a couple weeks ago. We would have preferred getting something that was styled after the period, but we weren't in the mood for shopping since the old one was leaking and unusable.

 

[Brinybay]

That type of twin-bowl sink was common from the mid-thirties into the sixties. The postwar version is usually pressed steel covered with porcelain enamel rather than the heavier cast iron type common in earlier decades, and many if not most were made as part of an integral sink/steel cabinet unit. An iron version would likely be older than the steel kind, and would probably have the casting date molded into the metal somewhere on the underside of the bowl. Crawl under with a flashlight and see if you can see "02 25 39" or something like that.

Stainless steel sinks started to find their way into homes in the late thirties, and monel-metal had a brief vogue before that, but the white porcelain style dominated well into the sixties.

And here it is! 9-15-49! Big bold stamp underneath the left bowl towards the front. Thank you very much! Any idea what the 9-10 is underneath the manufacture date?

View attachment 101192

 

[LizzieMaine]

Probably a mold number, a run number, or some other kind of internal manufacturing code.

 

[Brinybay]

Found more stamps on the underside of both bowls. Couldn't get a clear enough picture for the other stamp on the left bowl, but the right bowl had the manufacturers name (American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corporation Louisville) and model number (72X25 HOSTESS).