Posted 12 years ago
Maemny
(1 item)
I got this sewer from my husbands 93 year old grandma's house as it was emptied.
I sent a message to Finnish National Board of Antiquities and got an answer like this: "The text shown on the machine "E.J.Herlin Helsingfors" means a clocksmith Erik Johan Herlin (Aikala since 1906), who moved to Helsinki from Kotka in 1888 and did business, for example sold sewing machines in a sewing machine store, opened 1.10.1888.
He advertised ia. in 1897's Huvudstadsbladet-news paper Victoria sewing machine made in Durlach, Germany made by Gritzner (worked since 1872). Name Victoria was generally used trademark back then.
Gritzner's sewing machines were also copied that the Finnish newspapers warned about. Papers told, that the original Gritzner was able to identified by a golden plate with a spider logo and Gritzner name.
With these little pieces of information I would say, that the machine is a Victoria-named copy of Gritzner from 1890 or from very beginning of 1900's."
My machine's "golden" plate has a lion on it and name of letter "CP" on lion's left side. Under lion a text "marque depossee". The lion is not like the Peugeot lion.
Would anyone know anything about this beuty? I would like to find out more about its history.
You already know quite a lot about this machine - it seems to be, as you've discovered, a German fiddle based machine, badged as 'Victoria' for E J Herlin in Helsinki. Your estimate of 1890 could be a little earlier. 'Victoria' was very common as a name on sewing machines all over the world during the reign of Queen Victoria. Marque Deposee means Trade Mark.
The style of the machine is based on the Singer 12 which was heavily copied by dozens of companies in Germany. It might be a Gritzner, but it was common for resellers to have more than one brand for sale.