Ice cream molds go back as far as the 1830s but didn’t appear in the United States until the 1890s (the earliest U.S. patent for one is 1893), around the same time when small, hand-cranked ice cream makers for the home were widely available. The molds were typically made of pewter — like this one — which kept the ice cream cold and firm in the mold. Molds were made in a variety of shapes such as animals, fruits, flowers, and holiday symbols, but new shapes were introduced with changing times. Naturally with powered flight being a new craze, this piece was cast in a shape to make a Wright Flyer-shaped ice cream treat and likely dates to around 1909-10. This mold was donated to the EAA Aviation Museum in 2017 by Terry Golden, EAA 353045, of Bloomington, Minnesota.
