Happy birthday, bird!

Bro, if you gotta strip it down to metal every year then you are not cleaning it nearly well enough day to day. Stripping it down to bare metal every 50 years might even be too frequently imho.

Just get a lodge and use it a lot. It will get good fast. Alternatively go check Craigslist or ebay or shopgoodwill for something cheap that looks good to you.

The difference between cast irons is pretty small at the end of the day is pretty tiny and you shouldn’t spend too much money or brain power on getting one. You don’t need to be too selective because the biggest determing factors are how heavily seasoned it is and how practiced you are using it so you are better off just getting something and using it rather than looking for the perfect pan. I don’t even know who made my main pan, it just says “Taiwan” lol