By: EarlH On: Tue Jan 22, 2013 10:59 am
From the old stove catalogs I've seen over the years, those baseburners with the porcelain finish came out kind of late in the day. Probably after 1910-1912. After about 1920 you don't see them getting advertised too much. I think once those single pipe gravity furnace's got popular and the installation of a central heat plant was fairly simple and cheap, the parlor stoves kind of went by the wayside. You can be thankful that your's is a nice color, I've seen them in this awful lime green, and also a nasty pale yellow. Even some of the blue colors they were using on those stoves is like a neon or some really odd bright blue. I've been told they used cobalt for that, but have no idea really. The dove grey stoves like yours aren't bad looking and I did see one once that had black porcelain on it. If those have been over-fired it shows right up though as the porcelain gets all crazed and then rust comes up through the crazing. Looks like it's a really nice, well kept old stove. Be careful moving it though and if you use a two wheel cart, make sure you put a piece of plywood under the whole bottom. The bottom castings on those baseburners is not very thick and a two wheel cart will crack the bottom. I would put a piece of pink styrafoam between the bottom of the stove and the plywood if you move it that way to spread the weight of the stove out. Those broken base plates are a real problem with the old baseburners, especially the larger ones.