Buy the Lancaster if you cook for a family. Its published 10-inch flat cooking surface is the largest of any pan on this site, inside a rim that is only 11 5/8 inches across, and flat area is the spec that decides how much food you can brown at once. Buy the Stargazer if you cook for one or two, want the lighter pan, and would rather have a warranty in writing than the extra inches. Both are cast, machined and finished in Pennsylvania. Neither cooks better than a $25 Lodge, and both are honest about being bought for other reasons.
We own neither pan and run no test kitchen. Everything below is what the two makers publish on their own pages, read on the date stamped on this article, plus our own arithmetic from those figures — here is exactly what that does and does not entitle us to say.
The number that decides it
Rim diameter is the figure every listing leads with and the one that matters least. What you actually cook on is the flat floor inside the walls, and on a sloped-wall pan that floor is a great deal smaller than the rim.
Both makers now publish it, which they did not both do a few months ago:
- Lancaster No. 10 — 11 5/8 in rim, 10 in cooking surface, 2 1/8 in deep, 17 1/8 in handle to handle, 6 lb.
- Stargazer 10.5-inch — 10.5 in rim, 8.1 in cooking surface, 2.0 in deep, 19.4 in total length, 2.3 qt capacity, 5.2 lb.
Turn those into area and the gap stops being abstract. A 10-inch circle is about 79 square inches of flat iron; an 8.1-inch circle is about 52. The Lancaster gives you roughly half as much usable floor again as the Stargazer, from a pan that is only an inch wider at the rim and 0.8 lb heavier. In kitchen terms that is the difference between four chicken thighs and six, or between two large steaks and three.
Note that Stargazer’s 8.1 in figure is new. When this site first recorded the pan in August 2026, Stargazer published only the 10.5-inch rim and our spec table read “Not published” for the cooking surface. It publishes the number now, we have moved the table onto it, and that is the kind of change we would rather flag than silently absorb.
Head to head on what each maker publishes
| | Stargazer 10.5-inch | Lancaster No. 10 |
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| Rim diameter | 10.5 in | 11 5/8 in |
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| Flat cooking surface | 8.1 in (≈52 sq in) | 10 in (≈79 sq in) |
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| Depth | 2.0 in | 2 1/8 in |
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| Published weight | 5.2 lb | 6 lb |
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| Overall length | 19.4 in | 17 1/8 in handle to handle |
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| Capacity | 2.3 qt | Not published |
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| Cooking surface finish | Machined smooth after casting | Machined smooth after casting |
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| Helper handle | Not published | Yes |
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| Pouring | Flared drip-free rim, no spouts | Large pour spouts |
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| Finish options | Seasoned or bare, same price | Pre-seasoned only |
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| Made in | USA | Lancaster, Pennsylvania (cast, machined, seasoned, packed) |
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| Warranty | No expiration, manufacturer defects | Not published (45-day refund policy) |
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| Price band | Premium | Premium, higher |
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Where the extra Lancaster inches come from
Lancaster sells the No. 10 as “the main course skillet,” and the geometry backs that up. An 11 5/8-inch rim over a 10-inch floor means the walls are unusually upright for a machined pan — you lose only about 1.6 inches of diameter between rim and floor, where the Stargazer loses 2.4. Straighter walls hold more fat and more liquid, which is why this shape suits shallow frying and pan sauces, and they make the pan slightly worse at the slide-and-flip moves a sloped wall is designed for.
That number also settles a question people ask about the name. The old foundry numbers were never inches: the size chart the collectors’ society links gives a vintage No. 10 skillet as 11.75 inches across the top over a 10-inch bottom, which is almost exactly what Lancaster has built. If you want the full explanation of why a No. 8 is a 10.625-inch pan, our guide to the numbers on cast iron goes through the whole table.
The practical cost of the extra floor is storage and lift. Lancaster is a 17-inch object handle to handle and six pounds before food; it does not hang from a rail casually and it is a two-hand lift out of a hot oven. Stargazer, at 5.2 lb, sits in the same weight class as a classic 10.25-inch Lodge (5.36 lb), which is the pan most people are already used to.
Where Stargazer answers back
Three things, and the first one is the one nobody expects at this price.
A warranty you can read.Stargazer publishes cover with no expiration for manufacturer defects. Lancaster’s product page publishes no warranty terms at all; what Lancaster does publish is a refund policy giving 45 days from delivery if you are not satisfied with a piece. For two pans in the same price class that is a real asymmetry, and it runs opposite to the price — the cheaper pan is the better-covered one. Lodge, for comparison, publishes its Made Right lifetime terms for a pan at a tenth of either price.
A bare option.Stargazer sells the 10.5-inch in two finishes at the same price: seasoned with its own blend of canola, grapeseed and sunflower oils, or completely bare for cooks who would rather lay the seasoning down themselves. Almost nobody else offers that, and it is a genuine feature for anyone who has opinions about seasoning oil — our oil guide is the argument for having opinions.
A rim designed for pouring. Stargazer uses a flared, drip-free rim all the way round instead of two cast spouts, so you can pour fat off from any angle. Lancaster takes the traditional route with large pour spouts and adds a helper handle opposite the main one, which matters more than the rim design does when the pan weighs six pounds and is full.
What neither one buys you
Better cooking. Both pans are bare cast iron, like a Lodge, and iron does not improve as the price goes up. Browning is a stored-heat problem decided by mass and contact area, and a machined floor does not brown food better than a pebbled one of the same weight. What the milled surface does is release food more readily while the seasoning is young, which matters most in the first few months. After a year of honest cooking a classic Lodge converges on much the same behavior, which is the uncomfortable fact at the center of this whole category and the reason our budget ladder argues the cheap pan is the sane default.
Neither maker publishes an oven-temperature ceiling, because bare iron does not need one — both will take a broiler or a 500°F bread bake. Both are solid ferrous castings, so both work on induction. Both need the same wash-dry-oil routine as a $25 pan, and both will rust if you leave them wet.
The cheaper way to a milled floor
If what you want is specifically the smooth surface rather than the American provenance, there is a third option that costs roughly half of either pan here: Backcountry Iron’s Wasatch line mills its cooking surface too, and the 12-inch is the cheapest machined pan we rank. The trades are substantial and we lay them out in full in our Backcountry Iron review: no published country of manufacture, a 90-day warranty instead of a lifetime, a deep heat ring that rules it out on a glass cooktop, and a maker-published nine pounds that its own Amazon listing understates as five.
The verdict
Lancaster No. 10 is the pan to buy if you cook for three or more people, or if you have ever been annoyed that a 12-inch skillet still only browns four things at once. Ten inches of flat floor is the most usable cooking area on this site, and no 12-inch pan we rank beats it. Accept the six pounds, the 17-inch footprint and the unpublished warranty as the price.
Stargazer 10.5-inchis the pan to buy for everyday cooking for one or two. It is lighter, cheaper, easier to store, the only one of the two with warranty terms in writing, and the only pan in this class you can buy unseasoned. Its 8.1-inch floor is the honest limit — if you regularly cook for four, you will be cooking in batches.
And the answer we give most often: buy the classic Lodge and spend the difference on something else. Neither of these pans will cook your dinner better. They will feel better doing it, which is a legitimate reason to spend money — just not a cooking one. If you want the full field, including the two makers that do publish more than these, start with our cast iron brand comparison.
