Buyer’s Guide – Vintage French Copper

I’ve pulled some information together into an ongoing Buyer’s Guide geared towards helping you evaluate vintage copper and decide what’s right for you. (Are you a copper seller? I have a few tips for you, too.)

Start here!

I’ve put together some pages that I hope can help get you started.

Frequently Asked Questions about vintage copper — why I think it’s special, why it’s lined with tin, what it’s like to use and cook with it…
Identification for some tips on how to figure out who made a piece of vintage copper (and when!)
Cooking & care for suggestions on how to use and care for your vintage copper

Well-known makers

Field guide to Gaillard A lot of French and European coppersmiths made copper cookware! Most of them aren’t around any more, but you can identify their pots and pans by their name stamped in the copper. I’ve put together what I call “field guides” for a few of the more well-known makers with some history and photographs of stamps.

There were (and still are!) also some smaller coppersmiths in the French village of Villedieu-les-Poêles in Normandy.

(And for a quick crash course in the eras of coppersmithing as I see them, please check out Antique vs vintage vs modern.)

Linings

How to tell nickel from stainless Copper pans for general cooking can be lined with tin, stainless steel, nickel, or aluminum, and here’s some basic information about these options.

Tin is my preferred lining.
For a period of time in the 1970s to 1990s, French makers used the terms Cupretam, Cuprinox, and Cupronil to refer to copper with different linings.
Stainless-steel lined pans were made with three different interior finishes.
It can be tricky to distinguish stainless-lined from nickel-lined pans, so here are some suggestions.

Buying copper online

I’ve bought all my copper pots and pans online and I’ve learned a lot in the process.

See Where I buy copper to learn the online sellers I can recommend to you.
My buying mistakes has some lessons learned about this process.
My Reference: Measurements, weight, and thickness tables can help you estimate the thickness of a copper pan by comparing it to others I’ve measured.
Online sellers must pack pans carefully or they’ll arrive damaged. I have two posts on shipping boxes I have known — the good and the bad — plus a step-by-step unpacking of a very well-packed pan.
You will have to decide whether the pan you’re buying needs retinning. Here’s how I decide whether to retin or not.