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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Ladybranch, post: 77788, member: 44&quot;]&gt;How are they used? Presumably the basin is filled with hot coals or hot water &lt;</p><p><br /></p><p>Like Manson ID, these are Chinese irons. They were used in China and a few other SE Asian countries. They fall into the category of &quot;pan&quot; irons. The theory was similar to box/charcoal irons used in Europe and America. According to the following website, the &quot;Chinese were using hot metal for ironing before anyone else. Pans filled with hot coals were pressed over stretched cloth .............. A thousand years ago this method was already well-established.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>The top of page tells a little about this type of &quot;pan iron&quot; with an illustration. The section &quot;ironing in Asia&quot; tells a bit more with a couple of links to more info and illustration:</p><p><a href="http://www.oldandinteresting.com/antique-irons-smoothers-mangles.aspx" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.oldandinteresting.com/antique-irons-smoothers-mangles.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.oldandinteresting.com/antique-irons-smoothers-mangles.aspx</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Here are a variety of &quot;pan irons.&quot; Click a thumbnail to see description. As the page is in German, I have linked it with Google Translate:</p><p><a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A//www.buegeleisen.net/c1.htm&amp;hl=en&amp;langpair=auto|en&amp;tbb=1&amp;ie=windows-1252" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A//www.buegeleisen.net/c1.htm&amp;hl=en&amp;langpair=auto|en&amp;tbb=1&amp;ie=windows-1252" rel="nofollow">http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http://www.buegeleisen.net/c1.htm&amp;hl=en&amp;langpair=auto|en&amp;tbb=1&amp;ie=windows-1252</a></p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m not sure, but believe this particular pan iron is decorated in the Shang Dynasty style (style only not of that period) of taotie motif and leiwen thunder pattern in mirror image. Where the images meet is the crest. The 2nd pic posted above shows the crest on this iron. The big scrolls on each side are called C-horns:</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://www.kenney-mencher.com/pic_old/china/taotie_diagram.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>Scroll down the page about 1/3rd of the way to the above pic and read description above it:</p><p><a href="http://www.kenney-mencher.com/pic_old/china/Zhou_and_Shang.htm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.kenney-mencher.com/pic_old/china/Zhou_and_Shang.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.kenney-mencher.com/pic_old/china/Zhou_and_Shang.htm</a></p><p><br /></p><p>--- Susan[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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