Last weekend, I recalled that someone had posted a link to the Soy distributor in USA, which by a freak coincidence is located in little Anacortes, WA just a few miles from my beach house. I decided to drop by, and I’m glad I did, because they stocked perhaps 15 different standard pieces. Here’s their site, so folks can check prices or order: http://www.compasswines.com/Copper-27/
I was quite impressed. The default lining is silver, and the planishing is fine. There are sexy curves to the shapes much like the Italianate shapes of Mazzetti’s wares. The pans were of various thicknesses that seemed dependent on use, but the thinnest was an enormous unlined preserve pan at 1.5mm. The rest erred on being fort or extra fort; as an example, the fish poacher was a full 2mm, and many of the pieces were 3mm. The splayed handles were well-shaped and securely riveted (as many as FIVE rivets per handle!). The handles are also scaled to the sizes of the pans–the large saucepans had quite massive handles. The only problem I had was that the handles are all bronze instead of cast iron.
Judge for yourselves, but I thought the prices were not exorbitant. These pans come with a lifetime re-line guarantee–I do not know what it costs to ship to Istanbul and back for resilvering, but it must be less than paying to resilver in USA.
My loyalty lies with BCC, but these are very nice pans–perhaps nicer than their photos and ad copy would indicate.
Aloha,
Kaleo
