Vintage Graniteware

Close cousins of graniteware are those pieces whose grays and other colors were mottled or marbled. Colors appeared to blend into each other, or swirl and curlicue separately to create random, eye-catching patterns and effects. Today, mottled enamelware is a favorite of kitchen collectors, but it is usually treated as a separate category from graniteware.

One of the many benefits of graniteware was its low cost—Sears sold a set of 24 pieces for just $4.37. Because of its light weight, graniteware was much easier to handle than comparable cast-iron pieces, and its smooth surface made it easy to clean (white graniteware was popular in nurseries and doctor’s offices). As for pieces that resembled the outside of a speckled robin’s egg, they were simply cheerful and fun to use.

Unfortunately, graniteware was prone to cracking, which would expose the metal underneath and cause it to rust clear through. This tendency was so widespread that a company called Mendets sold patch kits containing a tool that was sharp on one end to ream out the hole, with a wrench on the other to tighten down the patch.

For a while, consumers were scared away from graniteware due to claims of antimony, lead, and arsenic in the enamel, a claim made most prominently by Lalance and Grosjean against its competitors. But in the 1930s, a new, more pressing threat would prove the end of graniteware’s popularity—aluminum.

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