Description: 1913 ST LOUIS MISSOURI LETTERHEAD NATIONAL ENAMELING & STAMPING CO. ORIGINAL HISTORY TRACED BACK TO 1865FORMED IN 1899 WITH SEVERAL OTHER COMPANIESKNOWN FOR ROYAL GRANITE STEEL WAREADVERTISING DEPARTMENTSOLD TO: R H NORRIS HARDWARE, CHILDRESS TEXAS, The company that would become NESCO was founded by Frederick G. Niedringhaus (1834-1922) and his brother, William F. Niedringhaus (1835-1908). Arriving in St. Louis in 1855, the Niedringhaus brothers were part of a large wave of German immigrants who arrived in the St. Louis region in the 1840s and 1850s. The brothers were tinsmiths, and in 1859 they began a tinworks in St. Louis that made household goods such as pots. In 1862 they mechanized production using a machine that stamped goods from a single sheet of tin. Business grew rapidly, and in 1865 the brothers incorporated as the St. Louis Stamping Company. They built a large factory in St. Louis to produce tin products.1 The product that elevated the St. Louis Stamping Company into a nationally recognized brand was graniteware or “granite ironware,” the name given to metal utensils coated with an enameled surface composed partly of ground granite. Graniteware was discovered by William Niedringhaus while traveling in Europe. According to company lore, William saw similar pots and pans in a European shop window and then spent weeks and thousands of dollars at the factory to learn all he could about the graniteware process. William brought this knowledge back to St. Louis and in 1874 the Niedringhaus brothers began manufacturing graniteware in their St. Louis plant. The St. Louis Stamping Company received patents for graniteware in 1876 and 1877. Although the iron and tin used by the company was originally imported, the Niedringhaus brothers built their own iron works in St. Louis in 1878 named the Granite Iron Rolling Mills. In the late 1880s, William successfully developed a process to enamel tin. (Previously, only iron could be enameled.) The Granite Iron Rolling Mills soon began producing tinplate alongside iron.2 In 1899, the St. Louis Stamping Company and Granite Iron Rolling Mills combined with several other companies producing enameled iron and tin products around the country. The new combination, named the National Enameling and Stamping Company (NESCO) to reflect its nationwide reach, established its headquarters in New York City under president Frederick G. Niedringhaus. NESCO expanded nationwide in these years. Although its Granite City plant remained a crucial component in its business, it acquired new plants in Baltimore and New Orleans. NESCO’s graniteware products were known around the world in the early twentieth century and were prominently featured at a display at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. The company’s signature product went through several name changes in this period, from Granite Ironware to Royal Granite Steel Ware to Royal Granite Enameled Ware, and eventually Nescoware.11SEE MY STORE: VINTAGE HARDWARE STORE COLLECTIBLES ORIGINAL, LETTERHEADS, BILLHEAD, BILLHEADS, HARDWARE.
Price: 4.99 USD
Location: Dallas, Texas
End Time: 2025-01-04T14:30:51.000Z
Shipping Cost: 2.5 USD
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Item Specifics
Restocking Fee: No
Return shipping will be paid by: Buyer
All returns accepted: Returns Accepted
Item must be returned within: 14 Days
Refund will be given as: Money Back
Featured Refinements: Letterhead
Modified Item: No
Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
Time Period Manufactured: 1900-20
