My neighbor gave this to me, said it was his fathers’ (my neighbor is in his early 70’s). I cleaned it up and brought it back to life. Fires right up. I just can’t find any information about it. I found a couple newspaper articles about the company and based on that little information I guess it to be manufactured between 1905 and 1929. Any other info that anyone might have on this would be greatly appreciated. Stamps :”American F’dry Co. Hamilton Ohio” and “Crown”
Yes, welcome to CCS. I wondered too, since town gas appears to have been the fuel originally. Without a jet change and even with a regulator, would propane be remotely possible?
I used propane. Have an initial test fire video. For the test I used a regulator from a turkey fryer connected directly to the stove. I have since got a proper brass fitting. The test video doesn’t show both valves turned low for manageable flame, but it seems to work nicely. I know next to nothing about these so I’m gathering so far that propane isn’t the fuel intended. I’ll take some flame photos after work and post.
That’s still more than I know though because you got it to work after a fashion! I used the term “town gas” to mean locally-generated ‘coal gas’ in the days before subterranean LPG sources, off-shore here in the UK. I’m old enough to have used domestic stoves plumbed in to ‘town gas’ supplies and the transition to ‘natural gas’, with consequent re-jetting of those appliances.
I can remember being in Worcester having the gas cooker converted to natural gas, moved to Dundee had to get it converted back to town gas and about a year latter to natural gas, poor thing gave up
It looks like a Crown stove made by the American Foundry and Machine Company of Hamilton, Ohio. American Foundry was bought out by the Wessling Brothers Foundry in 1929. Ben
LOL! I guess I should have titled the thread “Looking for more information about...”. I was able to fine one newspaper article about the sale of the company in 1929 and one advertisement.
Thanks. It kinda fell into my lap and became a sort of spontaneous one day project. Thought I’d might want to sell it but it’s such a nice piece, and considering it must be close to 100 yrs old, I’m going to hang on to it for awhile.
Good call. It's got a nice flame pattern and you can do some outdoor patio cooking with it. In a week or so I'll be outside making apricot jam so I don't mess up the wife's kitchen. She also likes me to make my fish and lobster stock outside because of the smell. Old stoves like yours have the kind of class you don't see anymore. Ben
i tossed out one of those a few weeks ago. i came with the garage when we moved in many-many years ago. i was using it as a stand for plastic gas cans.
