Collections: Irons

This sadiron belonged to Gen Q editor Melissa Thompson Maher's mother, who used it as a young girl growing up on a farm.

Quilters can be divided into two groups (okay, quilters can be divided into a million groups with thousands of subgroups, but just work with me here): those who love to iron and those who despise it with an all-consuming, passionate hatred of the kind usually reserved for war criminals and people who are mean to kittens. Those of us who fall into the latter category (and yes, I mean me) should stop and consider how lucky we are. These days, almost all the ironing I do is quilting-related, and my iron is a lightweight, sleek-and-shiny model I picked up at Target for less than twenty bucks. (And I have a lovely “smart textile” ironing board cover to keep me company!) I’m sure if my great-great-grandmother could hear me complain about how I hate to iron, she’d have all kinds of choice words for me about what ironing was like in her day. And then she’d probably flex her biceps at me—those old irons were seriously heavy!

And regardless of whether you love—or hate—ironing, quilters and stitchers do spend a lot of time with burnin’ hunks of metal in their hands. So it’s easy to understand why some feel driven to collect vintage and antique examples of these instruments of torture, er, highly effective tools.

Probably ever since people began to weave cloth they have also been trying to get the wrinkles out of it. There’s evidence of people using wood, glass and stone to smooth or pleat fabric and the Chinese were the first to use hot metal (more than a thousand years ago) by rubbing a pan filled with hot coals over material that had been stretched taut. Later, devices such as mangles and screw presses (which pressed fabric between rollers or between two flat plates) were available to those wealthy enough to afford them and the servants to use them, and these were usually best for larger items such as sheets or table linens. Clothing and other small items required hand-held tools, and in the Middle Ages, people started forging metal flat irons called sad irons or sadirons (not because the work made you cry, but because “sad” came from an old English word for “solid”).

A charcoal iron from the collection of Sandy Navas.

Most sadirons you find in antique shops and on eBay are from the 1800s or later, though they were used earlier than that. Sadirons had to be heated carefully – too hot and you could easily scorch the fabric; not enough, and well, why bother? Two irons had to be employed at the same time – one to heat while the other was being used – and they had to be kept scrupulously clean.

Eventually, someone figured out that you could hollow out the iron, and put hot material inside it. Charcoal irons have hinged lids and holes to allow in oxygen and keep the coals inside still smoldering. Some may have a tube that draws smoke away from the fabric and these are sometimes called chimney irons. And irons that use a heated brick or other solid material inside are called box irons or slug irons.

Another early type of iron is the gas or fuel iron, which used gasoline, kerosene, alcohol or other combustible over a gas-jet. These irons will have a tell-tale reservoir, usually at the back, to hold the fuel. These were made as late as the 1960s and are still in use among the Amish and others who live without electricity.

Streamlined Irons, by Jay Raymond, is a beautiful book that shows the variety and beauty in electric irons.

Antique sad irons range in price, with condition, age and rarity being the main factors. Plain irons with no special features or designs (and sometimes known as doorstop irons) will be the cheapest, often going for as little as a dollar from some dealers who find themselves glutted with them. Fluting irons, which pressed fabric into a kind of pleated shape, can go for as much as $3,000. Fuel irons generally range between $30 and $100, and charcoal irons can range from $75 to $500, with particularly rare models fetching well over $1,000.

And this doesn’t even begin to cover the range of irons that came about after the advent of electricity. Steam iron collector Jay Raymond has a gorgeous book, Streamlined Irons, and a blog  all about electric irons, and the design in some of the models he’s found is truly breathtaking. And serious collectors of all types of irons can find information and resources at The Pressing Iron and Trivet Collectors of America .

Sandy Navas has been collecting irons for 30 to 35 years, though she admits her first iron was purchased “because I needed an unobtrusive doorstop.” A couple of her treasures came from the Middle East, where she lived for a time, but most of her others were handed down from her mother or picked up at garage sales. Sandy says she’s “pretty much of a tightwad” and hasn’t paid more than $10 for most pieces.

A Coleman kerosene iron, from the collection of Sandra Fisher

Quilter and teacher Ann Turley also collects irons—but only of the electric persuasion—and she purchased her first one to use, not as a collectible. “Since the old irons don’t have steam vents and don’t shut off after 30 seconds in the horizontal position, I like to use them with fusible,” she says.

If you’re going to actually use one of your iron finds, Ann suggests being careful because older irons get much hotter than modern ones and have much shorter cords. She has paid as little as $3 for an iron, and only as much as $15 for some of the samples in her collection. (Unfortunately, Ann was in the process of moving and couldn’t photograph any of her collection for us.)

So the next time you’re cursing your Rowenta for becoming incontinent, just think about great-great-grandma lugging a hunk of cast iron out of the fire and trying not to burn herself or her linens. Just don’t tell her you have 20 of them and just snagged a great deal for another one on eBay. She might hurl that baby at your head.

– Megan Dougherty