The reason I ask is because they are not very thick as far as most skillets go. They look a bit, well… delicate. I bought them 20+ years ago at a thrift store thinking they were just meant for decoration, took them home and stuck them in a closet. I just came across them again and wondered if I can actually put them to use.
I have six of these; they sit nested inside each other. The largest is 11" and the smallest about 5" (what do you cook in a 5" skillet anyway? A single quail egg? Half a slice of bacon?)
They appear to have been made by hand, because of the dimple marks all over as if they were pounded into shape. But there might be a way of doing that with a machine nowadays to get that handmade appearance.
As long as the copper is on the outside, and not the inside of the pan, there’s no reason why you can’t cook with them. Hubby would kill for a set of stainless steel-lined copper pans - copper has a high dispersion of heat, and copper pans cook very evenly, and react to changes in heat quickly. Unfortunately, copper is also highly reactive, and you can’t cook anything acidic in them without leaching the copper out (the same reason why you don’t cook tomato sauce in aluminum).
According to Julia Child, the copper clad pans are only worth buying if the copper is thicker than what is found on most of them. I forget the exact thickness of copper, something like 1/16 or more, IIRC.
Fire 'em up.Do watch out for high heat,unless you’re tending the pan, since they’ll warp easily. They aren’t copper clad, but rather tin-plated copper.If you overheat them empty you could ruin the tinning.
The peening/planishing marks may or may not indicate handmade as that can be done with a trip hammer though such tools are used by artisans.
