Early ceiling fan brands include Hunter, Emerson, Diehl, Century, Robbins & Myers, Delco, General Electric/GE, Dayton, and Westinghouse. These brands all made popular fans that today are considered antique. If some of these brand names sound familiar, they should. Hunter and Emerson have made ceiling fans since the 1800s and are still making some of the best fans available today. Century and Robbins & Myers' ceiling fan lineups became part of Hunter throughout the years as the result of various buyouts. Westinghouse stopped making ceiling fans over 50 years ago, but recently started licensing their name to ceiling fans again. General Electric no longer makes ceiling fans but they are still very much in business. Dayton is still the house brand of W.W. Grainger and licenses their name to ceiling fans as well.

Antique ceiling fans generally used shaded pole motors with an "oil bath" design. These are simple, powerful motors that do not use a capacitor or sealed bearings, and require regular oiling for smooth operation. Most antique ceiling fans included a "speed coil" or, in the case of later fans, had winding taps for 2 or 3 distinct speeds. However most of these fans are compatible with solid state or transformer based speed controls. Antique fans generally draw more current than the capacitor-driven ceiling fans of today, but they are also usually more powerful. Most of these fans have cast iron motor construction. The earliest and most valuable antique ceiling fans have solid brass motors, some even more rare models may be made of copper or nickel or the like. These valuable fans are usually very ornate and fancy in design. The earliest ceiling fans had two blades, four very quickly became the most popular with the occasional 6 blade fan. 3 and 5 blade fans did not become popular until the 1980s. Blades were usually made of solid wood, with the occasional metal bladed fan. These antique fans mounted with a j-hook and porcelain grommet, and are very very heavy.