Ferro Foundry
Columbus, Ohio — casting since 1948. The No. 08 Cast Iron Skillet, machined smooth the old way. This is the last year.
Ferro Foundry has poured our skillet since the first catalog: cast in Columbus sand, machined smooth across the cooking face the way all good pans were before the industry decided rough was rustic, and seasoned before it ships. It is the heaviest object we sell and the one most often mentioned in the letters people send us.
This year the foundry's patternmaker retires, and the foundry retires with him. The pattern was offered to us; other foundries could have poured it. We declined, for reasons we have set down properly on The Last Run — the short version is that the No. 08 was never a shape. It was a shop.
The last run came off the floor in June: fourteen skillets, each one numbered, sold from the outfitting room only. Service on every skillet ever sold continues, free, for the life of the pan — retirement changes what we make, never what we stand behind.
At the bench this quarter
Nothing, for the first time since 1948. The floor is swept, the pattern is crated for the back wall at Crosby Street, and fourteen numbered skillets are waiting to be lifted once and owned.