Last year, in the fall I think it was, we got the idea to turn the old well house into a chicken house.  This entailed cleaning everything out and storing it elsewhere.  While we were at it I took a peek into the attic, if you will, and found an old iron moldering away up there.

To put is succinctly it was NASTY

I zip locked it that evening and let is sit till today.

I scrubbed, rubbed, polished and even ran it under the water in the sink.  I’m NEVER, EVER, going to plug it in, so why not?

I used stainless steel polish, aluminum foil to rub out the rust, and tons of elbow grease!  I was determined to make her shine.

To clean the base-plate I had to remove it…

I almost wished I hadn’t, but was very glad for the intuition on bagging the thing months back.

YECH!

Lots of dead spiders in there.

This didn’t come out as nicely as the rest of the surfaces, but it revealed the manufacturer.  Manning-Bowman of Meridian Connecticut.

So, I went online and searched.  I found an iron that was exactly like mine, but no details on the Manning-Bowman MFG.  I persisted.  And came up with an old ad!

Meet the Iron that Wags its Tail!

My iron had lost the logo imprinted on its base.  Too bad as it would have saved me quite a bit of time today.  But hey, I found it!

So now my 1940 Streamlined beauty is all cleaned, shiny, and sitting up on display with my cast iron beauties collected from family.

Oh, and don’t let her sleek looks fool you… she’s pretty heavy in her own right at 4.75 pounds!

I think she looks pretty good!

I do wonder why the previous owner wrapped up the broken iron and saved it don’t you?  Never-the-less, I was glad to discover it last fall.

Question:  How many of you remember the shaker top water applicators for ironing before steam irons came on the scene?

NOTE:  The original ad was found HERE.   Do have a look there are several oldies but goodies regarding housework in the 40s.