Favorite Stove and Range Company

The company and its place in the trade

Favorite Stove and Range Company spent the better part of nine decades making cookware and heating equipment in Piqua, Ohio. The company's active years, 1849 to 1935, place it squarely in the middle period of American cast iron production, overlapping with the rise and peak of the major names that collectors more readily recognize today - Griswold, Wagner, and Lodge among them.

What set Favorite apart was not its scale, its marketing, or its distribution reach. It was the iron itself. Foundry workers in Piqua developed a casting approach that produced pieces measurably thinner and lighter than most contemporaries. Whether that reflected a deliberate design philosophy, a response to particular customer demands, or simply the accumulated skill of a particular workforce is not entirely settled. The result is consistent enough across surviving pieces that it reads as intentional.

The company sold its cookware under the Favorite Piqua Ware name, a brand that enjoyed genuine regional and national recognition during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It did not, however, achieve the lasting name recognition of some larger competitors, and that obscurity has made Favorite a discovery piece for many collectors - something found at a reasonable price that turns out to perform better than expected.

Reading an unmarked Favorite work

The most reliable way to identify a Favorite piece is not by the mark alone but by the combination of the mark and the physical character of the casting. Marks can be ground off, worn, or obscured. Casting character is harder to disguise.

Favorite skillets are notably light for their diameter. A Favorite number 8 skillet will feel meaningfully different from a Wagner or Griswold of the same nominal size - not marginally lighter, but noticeably so when handled side by side. This is the first thing experienced collectors check.

The cooking surface - the interior of the skillet - is typically smooth and fine-grained, machined to a degree that places it among the better-finished American skillets. The walls are thin and taper evenly. The gate mark or sprue mark, where present, is usually found on the bottom of the skillet, and its character can help with dating cast iron pieces more precisely.

The heat ring on base-marked examples is generally well-defined but not exaggerated. The pour on Favorite pieces tends to be clean, with fewer of the surface irregularities that appear on foundries working at higher volume with less attention to finish.

Handle design varied across the production run. Earlier pieces tend to have a more utilitarian, relatively flat handle. Later pieces show some refinement. Neither is dramatically distinctive in isolation, but in combination with weight and surface finish, handle character contributes to a recognizable family resemblance across Favorite pieces.

How the marks changed

The mark sequence for Favorite is useful but not perfectly documented. The earliest decades of the company's operation, running from 1849 through the late nineteenth century, left little in the way of confidently attributed marked pieces. This is not unusual for foundries of that era - marking practices were inconsistent industry-wide, and many early pieces left the foundry with minimal or no branding.

By the 1890s, a plain FAVORITE mark appears on pieces that collectors generally associate with the foundry, though the evidence linking specific mark styles to specific decades is thinner than collectors sometimes acknowledge. The addition of PIQUA WARE to the mark, producing the FAVORITE PIQUA WARE stamp that is the most recognized identifier today, is generally placed in the early twentieth century, though the precise transition point is debated.

The full FAVORITE PIQUA WARE mark with size number is the version most collectors encounter and the one most useful for attribution. It is specific enough to the Piqua foundry that its presence, combined with appropriate casting characteristics, gives reasonable confidence in identification.

Late production pieces, from the 1920s through the foundry's closure in 1935, show some variation in markings that is not yet well-cataloged. Collectors should treat late-period attribution with a degree of caution and rely on casting character as much as mark detail.

What Favorite made well, and what it made indifferently

Favorite is remembered primarily for its skillets, and the skillets are where the foundry's reputation is best supported by surviving evidence. The range of sizes was broadly consistent with industry standard numbering, and the quality is generally high across the skillet line.

Griddles attributed to Favorite share the thin-wall character of the skillets and are similarly regarded among working cooks. Long griddles for wood and coal stoves were a period staple, and Favorite examples perform well.

Dutch ovens and deeper vessels attributed to Favorite are less consistently documented. Some examples exist and are collected, but the case for Favorite's excellence in that category is not as well-built as it is for skillets. Collectors interested specifically in Favorite Dutch ovens should apply extra scrutiny to attribution.

The company also made stoves and ranges - the name says so directly - and those products represent a significant part of the company's actual business during its operating years. Cast iron collectors focused on cookware tend to overlook this, but it is a reminder that the cookware line was one part of a larger manufacturing operation.

Waffle irons, corn bread pans, and specialty molds attributed to Favorite turn up occasionally. Attribution on these pieces can be harder to confirm, and the collector market for them is more variable. The full cookware range that Favorite produced has not been comprehensively cataloged in any single public resource.

Reproductions and mistaken identity

Favorite pieces are not among the most frequently faked in the American cast iron market, but the premium they command has attracted some attention. The more common problem is misattribution rather than outright faking.

Pieces marked simply FAVORITE without the PIQUA WARE addition are sometimes assumed to be Favorite Stove and Range Company products when they may be from other makers who used similar single-word marks. The word FAVORITE was not unique to the Piqua foundry. Without the full PIQUA WARE mark or strong corroborating casting characteristics, a plain FAVORITE mark should be treated as inconclusive.

Pieces from other Ohio foundries are occasionally confused with Favorite because of regional similarity in casting practices and period overlap. Wagner Ware, also an Ohio maker, produced some thin-walled pieces, though experienced handlers generally find the two distinguishable by weight and surface character.

Reproductions of the most desirable Favorite sizes do exist. New castings tend to be heavier, have a rougher surface texture, and show less precise finishing on the cooking surface. The identification guide covers general reproduction detection in more detail.

Restoration work can obscure original surface character. A heavily re-seasoned or improperly restored piece may feel different from an unrestored example. If purchasing a restored Favorite piece, ask about the restoration process and, if possible, check the mark area carefully for signs of cleaning methods that could have affected metal integrity.

Using one now

This is where Favorite's reputation becomes most concrete. The thin-wall casting that defines the line means these skillets heat faster and respond to temperature changes more quickly than heavier vintage pieces. On a modern gas burner, a Favorite skillet behaves more like contemporary thin carbon steel cookware than like a modern cast iron pan from a current American maker.

On electric coil or glass-top ranges, the lighter weight is an advantage. Thin pieces are generally more compatible with flat electric surfaces than heavier ones, though care with glass-top surfaces is always warranted. The care guide covers modern surface compatibility in more detail.

The trade-off is heat retention. A thin skillet releases heat faster when cold food is added. Cooks who use cast iron specifically for its thermal mass will find Favorite pieces less suited to that application than a heavier skillet. Cooks who want responsive, maneuverable, fast-heating iron will find them exceptionally well-suited.

What one is worth

Favorite Piqua Ware sits in the high collectibility band among American cast iron makers. Pieces in good condition with clear marks command a meaningful premium over common makers, and the most desirable sizes and forms - particularly skillets in the middle sizes with full PIQUA WARE marks - are actively sought by both collectors and working cooks.

Still, Favorite has not reached the price ceiling of the rarest Griswold or Wagner variants, and genuinely good examples still turn up at prices that experienced collectors consider fair. The value guide provides more context on how condition, mark clarity, and size affect relative pricing. If you have a piece and want a specific assessment, the quote form is the most direct way to get one.

Open questions about this maker

Honesty about the gaps is part of how this reference is useful. Several things about Favorite Stove and Range Company are not settled:

• The precise timing of mark transitions is not documented with the specificity that collectors sometimes imply. Dates given in online guides and auction listings often reflect consensus guesswork rather than archival evidence.
• The full product range - every form Favorite made during its 86-year run - has not been comprehensively cataloged.
• The reasons for the foundry's closure in 1935 are not well-documented in sources accessible to collectors.
• Early production, roughly the first three to four decades of operation, is poorly represented in attributed surviving pieces, and claims about pre-mark-era pieces should be treated skeptically.
• The relationship between the cookware brand and the stove and range manufacturing side of the business - how those lines were managed, priced, and distributed - is not something the collector literature addresses in detail.

These gaps are worth naming plainly. A reference that fills them with plausible-sounding invention is less useful than one that says where the record runs thin. If you have documentation that addresses any of these open questions, the blog accepts reader contributions and primary source material.