Meet my Kitchen Stove (again!)

 Hello dear friends,

As I previously posted about my lovely Wedgewood stove I purchased a few years ago I thought I would take a deeper dive into it and everything I can find out about it.  

Here is my beautiful green and ivory Wedgewood stove I purchased a few years back.  It has been carefully sitting in my garage all wrapped up and safe until the time comes to put her in my kitchen. That plan is still a little bit away, but as a lover of ephemera related to some of my objects, I decided one evening to obsess over everything I could to find out what the story was behind this stove.  First let me start by saying that I purchased this stove sight unseen and not knowing anything about it.  It was listed on Ebay some years back with a higher price than I thought I could afford and it intrigued me, but did not entice me to think much more of it.  After several listings of not selling, the listing was removed and I didn't think much more of it.  Occasionally an obsession will strike in my mind without merit or reasoning and several months after this stove's listing had expired, I thought I would reach out to the seller and offer a low price for the stove, just to see what happened.  Honestly I had no intention to buy a stove and thought the seller would just ignore my message.  However luck sometimes strikes and the seller agreed to my offer.  I was shocked and thought, "oh what do I do now?".  As you might know, my house is in Minnesota, but the stove was in California.  No small distance, but luckily I found a shipper willing to bring it out to me. Actually the shipping cost more than the stove itself.  The seller had told me that the stove was her brother's ,but that he had passed away.  She remembers baking cookies in it with her brother, Leonard and that he had had it restored at some point, but that was all she knew.  I explained to her how it would be going to a very good home and I would cherish it as long as I had the house.  So the stove was delivered and has sat waiting for the day it will return to life once again.  I have decided to have the stove tuned up again, since I want to ensure it will be ready to last another century in good shape.  It had already been updated with modern safety ignitions for the oven, but I thought if I am going to put this in the house, I need to do it right.  So after determining who I should ask to take on the task on the new restoration, I have selected a company in Georgia who specializes in these beautiful antiques and they will begin this project in early 2026.  That time frame is great for me as it gives me time to keep planning for the kitchen renovation.  I have to slightly chuckle that this stove will have gone from coast to coast with the best care it can have it the first century of it's life.  Until the time comes to send it away for it's restoration the idea struck me to consider what I really had.  I had reached out to several sources to ask what date it might have been made and more insight. The stove as we can clearly see is a stunning Wedgewood range with two ovens (one smaller for every day use and a larger one both with separate thermostats , a broiler,  6 cook top burners with cover platelets (otherwise known as double closed cooktop which is an enclosed table like cooking top for greater convenience (which will be discussed later),  with rutz lighters, curved warming compartment to keep plates or food warm until serving, storage drawer for your pots and pans, Robert Shaw thermostats for both ovens, built in vent hood with condiment shelf,   removable grease catching tray under the burners for easy cleaning and side extension plate in green and cream colored porcelain.  I was dying to know how old it could be.  One place told me it was made around 1923-1928 and another told me from 1935-1939.  Because I am a person who likes specifics, I could not just live with this rough time frame, so I figured I would have to get to the bottom of this myself.  My first search of Wedgewood stoves told me that they were  manufactured in Newark California by the James Graham Manufacturing Company. Early advertisements detail that the stoves were made of high quality rust resistant Armco iron, which was proclaimed to be used in building U.S. battle ships.  I then began searching old newspapers to try to see if I could find an advertisement of my stove.  This was no small task because I was searching from about 1920-1939, starting with earliest until later. Pouring through hundreds of pages of Wedgewood stove ads I learned a great deal about the evolution of these early stoves.  Did you know that each city or area had different options for gas service and that you could choose your stove based on the service you wanted?  Or that many stoves of this period were still combination stoves of gas and coal/wood.  So much was poured over that I thought I would never find anything related to my Wedgewood stove, until I made it to March 1929 and lone behold, an advertisement for my stove.

My heart sank, a huge smile on my face and I jumped for joy that I had found my EXACT stove in advertisements.  None before 1929 and based on this advertisement listing it as a "new model" I have to believe that my stove could not have been made before 1929.  1929 was not as nice year as you might know.  In September of that year, the great depression began and selling a top of the line luxury model like this would be virtually useless.  There is no price listed on this advertisement, but I believe it sold for the top end at $356.  Why?  Well because the next advertisement for the stove shows a price reduction. 

February of 1930 is the next advertisement I found of my stove.  The price now listed at $338 but still very expensive at the time.  Wedgewood must have thought perhaps the depression wouldn't be too long to that some people might still be able to afford this luxury.  

But by May of 1930 another price reduction was made and this is the last advertisement I found of my specific stove.  So this leads me to believe my stove was made for a very short time, between 1929 and 1930 because a similar, but smaller version of the stove was being advertised in 1931.  Perhaps it was more economical to make than mine, but I cannot imagine there was great demand for these 6 burner stoves in the early 1930s.  The similar stove came in the same colors, but does not have a decorative panel between the large oven and the storage drawer and the oven thermostat dial for the larger oven was displayed behind a little window next to the large oven.  Here is an image of that stove and it's advertisements:

1931 Advertisement of the similar stove but cheaper and a little smaller.  

1930 photo showing a Miss Haar testing out the new stove.  Sadly I couldn't find an image os someone testing my stove, but I guess I will have to accept this one. 

SO, I know have good reason to believe my stove was made in 1929-possibly 1930.  But what else made this stove so special in it's marketing?  I am glad you asked.  

Marketing highlights of the Wedgewood stove.  Porcelain exteriors and enamel interiors made for high durability and easy cleaning.  It mentions that these stoves now have a new double closed top.  What does that mean?  I was slightly confused too because My stove has metal plates like an old wood cookstove that cover the burners.  Why would you need that?  It didn't make sense to me.

I researched all about closed cooktops and I found some very interesting insights into the time of early gas into the homes.

So the covers could keep fumes of the gas out, keep soot out and one could actually just turn the burners on and have them heat the whole top to distribute the heat.  This is an interesting note and when the stove is up and running, I will have to test out if you can actually efficiently cook with the cover plates on, although I imagine it stays hot for some time which one would have to be careful of.

The last interesting thing about these stoves that I found in marketing of the automatic gas lighter, that you could light four burners at once.  This is called a Rutz lighter and what a fun, albeit slightly dangerous tool  

Rutz lighter advertisements start showing up around 1920 and with a single button, you could push and the standing pilot light would be transformed into a mini flame thrower, throwing flames into the directions of the burner or burners so that one wouldn't need to use matches.  

Rutz lighter in action.  

After spending so many hours pouring over the ephemera I felt like I had accomplished what I had set out to do.  I wish I could find a period photo of someone using my model stove, but I got close.  I found the date and all my questions answered to the stove.  There doesn't seem to be any surviving catalogs of Wedgewood from this period.  Wedgewood was purchased by other companies and closed up fully in the early 1970s from what I can tell.  I would love to find a catalog of the stove, but it doesn't seem likely.  If you dear readers find any more supporting documentation I will WELCOME it!  Similar stoves' catalogs like Glenwood seem to have survived better.  It seems this early Wedgewood stove was a rare beauty made for an extremely short time and I am proud to call her mine and give her (actually shouldn't it be he since it was and will now be known as Leonard's Stove) a home for a long time.  How will I design the kitchen around this stove? Well that will remain to be seen, but it won't be a Victorian kitchen like the rest of the house.  Seems I will be having a 1929 kitchen installed which just bring excitement to my visions for the future.

Until next time dear friends!