Originally Posted by Sew'hio

Here is my Kenmore 148.210. The fit and finish are excellent, top of the line, I'm speaking about the initial build, not its current condition. The dark color is a deep metal fleck paint. The almond color is high quality enamel, almost looks like porcelain. It is in generally very good condition, but she has a couple of scars on her head where I suspect some one dropped something on her.

From what I can tell she was sold from 1963-1966. Continuously variable, stitch length and zig-zag width. Push-button foot pressure. She'll drop her dogs. Has the light switch on the bed. No-brainer bobbin loader. Push-button reverse-tacking. Metal knobs, with relatively large (but tastefully recessed) screws to hold them on. All metal innards (technical term for internal components) and a 1.2 Amp motor. Very heavy clean casting and a lot of nice machine work. Built in Japan by Soryu. Haven't been able to find much about Soryu.

What I did find out is that the US and Allies helped Japan develop several industries after WWII, and sewing machine manufacturing was one of them. After WWI, the victors left Germany in ruins, and it is widely accepted that the dire conditions left the people ripe for the rise of a leader that would come to start WWII. We didn't want that to happen again, so we jump started Japans post war economy by handing them critical technology related to the manufacture of sewing machines. By the mid 1960's they were the big-dog country-of-origin for sewing machines.