The 1834 Pyrenean copper-spinner who makes our pans

Marc-Antoine's great-great-great-grandfather was a tin-smith who started making copper pans in 1834 because the village was getting too small to support a tin-smith and copper was the obvious adjacent business. Six generations later, Marc-Antoine and his wife Hélène run the workshop with two apprentices, and the workshop is exactly where it was in 1834.

I met Marc-Antoine at a trade show in 2019 when I was still designing kitchen tools in Copenhagen. We talked for two hours about lead times. When I started Marsalforn Home four years later, his workshop was the first I called.

How they make a pan

Each pan starts as a flat copper disc, 1.5mm thick. Marc-Antoine spins the disc on a wooden form by hand, working the metal up to shape with a steel rod. The whole spinning process for one pan is about 25 minutes. The brass handles are forged separately and riveted on by hand — never welded, never glued. The tin lining is wiped on by hand using a torch and a tow of cotton, exactly the way it's been done since 1834.

Why we re-tin

After 5 to 30 years of use, the tin lining wears through. (Some customers manage decades, others wear it through in a few years if they cook acidically often.) When that happens, you send the pan back to us, we send it to Marc-Antoine, he re-tins it, we send it back to you. €60 plus shipping. The pan keeps going.

I bought my own first sauté in 2020. It's due for its first re-tin around 2050, on current usage.

Mateo