Posted 4 years ago
Djomla
(1 item)
I have this fot long time it was my grandmothers but i dont know anything about it, so please help.
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Posted 4 years ago
Djomla
(1 item)
I have this fot long time it was my grandmothers but i dont know anything about it, so please help.
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Hi, Djomla. :-)
I don't know whether you ever got any assistance with identifying your grandmother's sewing machine, but what I think I can tell you about it is that, despite the name painted on the horizontal arm, it's probably not a Singer.
It does look like a knock off of a Singer model 12:
https://ismacs.net/singer_sewing_machine_company/model-12-sewing-machine.html
https://www.singersewinginfo.co.uk/12
http://needlebar.org/main/early12s/index.html
Not only is there no Singer company medallion on the vertical arm/pillar, e.g.:
https://www.alamy.com/the-singer-manufacturing-company-vintage-medallion-image311710011.html
There doesn't seem to be any evidence that there ever was one installed (note the elliptically-shape patch of darker paint on this one):
http://needlebar.org/main/early12s/graphics/86040.jpg
Neither does it look like there is any serial number stamped into the surround of the stitch length mechanism on the machine bed, e.g.:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Singer12k.jpg
One curious feature of your grandmother's machine is that silver-colored plate at the junction of the horizontal arm and the pillar.
What that looks like to me is the needle/thread guide plate installed on some vintage White vibrating shuttle machines, e.g.:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:VS_IIa_White_Treadle_Sewing_Machine.jpg
Your grandmother's machine might be a White. Then again, whoever was bold enough to paint the name of a notoriously lawsuit-happy company like Singer on a non-Singer machine might not have been averse to 'recycling' a White needle/thread guide plate, either.
Ultimately, about the only thing I can tell you about your grandmother's machine is that it appears to be a knock-off of a Singer model 12 which was an enormously popular sewing machine in its day and many companies copied it.
That, and it remains an interesting mystery. :-)
FYI, I'm revising some of my vintage sewing machine help here at Collectors Weekly Show & Tell and I am planning to use copies of some of your pictures of this particular sewing machine. This is a non-profit effort.
If you don't want me to do that, just tell me here on this post in a comment and I'll remove any copies of your pictures from my post(s).
Cheers,
keramikos
Hi again, Djomla. :-)
In the course of going back through all of the vintage sewing machines posted here at Collectors Weekly over the years, I found one that looks very similar to yours:
https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/6489-la-reine-reina-hand-cranked-sewing-machi
Yours lacks the Clemens Mueller medallion on the pillar as well as the following inscription on one of the slide plates:
A. Jacob y Cia
Suc da Burmeister y Cia
Valparaiso
However, the latter strikes me as something added by a third party reseller.
They both looks like Singer model 12 transverse shuttle knock offs and have that needle/thread guide plate at the shoulder.
Why might a Clemens Mueller La Reina have been (re) painted with the name "Singer?"
This is total speculation on my part, but it might have been done by some small-time reseller who understood the marketing value of the Singer name.
It also could have been done during WWI when something or somebody having a Germanic name wouldn't have been popular in some parts of the world.
After all, the British royal family changed their name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor for that reason.
On the other hand, it might be a Frister & Rossman transverse shuttle:
https://www.fiddlebase.com/frister-rossmann/ts-from-1888-to-1925/
Another odd thing about your machine is that it appears to be in/on a treadle table, but not necessarily operational as a treadle machine. A belt doesn't appear threaded, I can't see a foot pedal and the wood of the table looks rather new.
However, if the German machines are anything like the Singers, it's an easy matter to convert a hand crank machine to a treadle operated one, and vice versa.
Here's a Clemens Mueller treadle (you can see that the sewing machine head has a hand crank installed, even though it's also installed in a treadle):
https://www.veritas-sewing.com/files/veritas/125-jahre-veritas/Anzeige%201894%20%28Scan%20Veritasklub%29.jpg
Here's a Frister & Rossman treadle:
http://needlebar.org/main/survresults/fristerrossmann/007/index.html
Oh well, I'm probably pouring information into a black hole.
Suffice it to say that this machine head looks to me like an old German transverse shuttle machine from which somebody has:
Stripped off the manufacturer's brand medallion
Stripped off the nickel-plated, serial number-stamped, stitch-length, mechanism surround (yeah, that made me dizzy)
Painted the Singer name on the horizontal arm
Removed the hand-crank
That doesn't mean it isn't/wasn't a good sewing machine, because the Germans made some excellent ones; however, somebody's made some odd changes to it for reasons I'll probably never know.