Here's part of your ID problem. Companies to capture more of the market did 2 things- put popular topics or names on the machines- such as Universal (universal pictures). The goal of Sears was to convince women they needed a new machine yearly through the machine was the same the scrolling and name would change. National sewing machine company as well as White and others made machines under other names (badge names) for places like Marshall Fields. Because they did not put their own info on the machine they are hard to trace- one odd place to check for info is the underside of the slide bobbin cover. Also to complicate matters further in ID is after WWII the US gave the plans for the Singer 15 and a few others to the Japanese to retool their weapons factors to make items like sewing machines to recover their economy. the American market was flooded with over 5,000 badge names. Several other Europian companies did the same thing after the war as the belief was mistrust in the US of Europe would hurt sales. Try these 2 places for help
International Sewing Machine Collectors Society and the Japanese Collectors Group on Yahoo. Both are great resources and someone may know more. One machine did cause an international rift. The American Beauty- it was made in Japan. Law suits were launched to stop it. We recently worked on and sold an early 1950's American Beauty that was in Mint condition. It was facinating with over 80 built in stitches.