The Century Skeletal: A masterpiece of industrial machinery.

Century skeletals are very unique and interesting fans. They were Century electric's first line of desk fans, starting with the rare and hard to find frame S4, a fan that I would love to have some day. The S4 is believed to have been made between 1908-1910. They have massive split phase motors and have got to be one of the most powerful desk fans ever made. The Frame S3 came after the S4 and is much more common. The date code in the base of my S3 dates it to 1914, although some S3s have been found with dates as late as the early 1920's. The earliest S3s retained the cast iron base that the S4s had with a split phase motor, and shortly after that they transitioned to the stamped base 3 wire headwire S3s in the model 14. The model 14 stationary fans appear to all have 4 bolt motors, while the oscillators have 2 bolt motors but an inverted greasecup on the back. The later model 15 has a two bolt motor for the stationary and oscillating fan and a flip up oil cap above the oscillator.  In the stationary model 14 the band around the middle of the motor is stamped steel while the endbells are cast, compared to the later model 15 where the whole motor is cast iron, causing the motor mounting points to differ. The Century Skeletals are one of a handful of early fans to have 5 speeds. This particular fan was one that I bought with a BIN off of ebay.