I am having a lot of trouble posting to the board--it seems to eat my posts. Apologies if this turns up twice. At any rate, Singer's first model 15 was the Improved Family, which I believe was first manufactured in the early to mid 1880's. I'd have to look it up to know for sure. I have one of the early finger-pinchers (bobbin case is a bit touchy), but haven't sewn on it in a while.
Originally Posted by
BoJangles
Monica, thanks for the thought about getting the Pfaff for me! I appreciate it.
You know you are so funny! You make me think! Anyway, I really doubt if that Pfaff has anything to do with Singer's actual class 15 machines. Given that the Pfaff was made in 1912 way before the 15 clones were popping up everywhere, I doubt it is a clone of any type, but who knows? My thoughts on the whole clone thing is that Singer, who had a reputation for putting all the competition out of business with their lawsuits, would never have allowed Pfaff to copy one of their machines. Singer was not nice back then! We all know the reason the 15 clones all came about after WW2 was because we gave the Japanese the design specs to help out their economy after we bombed them. It would actually be funny if Pfaff got by with copying Singer's Model 15, as Singer put so many good companies out of business who even came close to copying any of their patents. I still wonder why, though, the Pfaff resembles a 15, but it certainly wasn't because the Japanese were making 15's in 1912 - they started those 15's much much later. Nice theory though - makes us think!
Nancy