Originally Posted by
footlooseman
I am in Ukraine with my friend and she knows that I love collecting vintage sewing machines.
The Soviets sure had some interesting sewing machines such as the Tikka (looks like a Singer 15) that was made in Finland, which I wanted to take home except it's a treadle and I can't see taking that on the airplane. [ATTACH=CONFIG]309118[/ATTACH]
This is my first post here, I can't resist sharing a few things about Tikka sewing machines. I live in Finland, and
Tikka is very common SM in various "craigslists" around here. Yellow/yellowish cream is very common colour, there are also black Tikkas, but I have not seen many.
Tikka is made in independent Finland, so it makes my eyes sore seeing it is claimed to be soviet made... although the factory where Tikkas were made, was owned by the Soviet Union at one time (1945-1957). Finland was and is independent state. We were not under soviet rule, but after the WWII there were some silly arrangements around here because Soviet Union "won" and Finland "lost" the war.
Tikka was made in a factory called Tikkakoski. It was famous making machineguns etc. pre- and during WWII. You can easily understand why soviets put the gun making down and made the factory do SM:s instead.
Tikka means woodpecker and woodpecker is seen in the front decal of the machine. Tikka refers also to "tikki", stitch in finnish.
Tikka sewing machines were sold widely in Finland and in Soviet Union. They were made as treadles (1946-1964) and electric (1946-1967).
The quality of the machines was a bit questionable, according to my source, and some of the salesmen were accused of espionage (they tried to recruit persons from the finnish military people).
Tikka is an interesting part of industrialisation of my country and interesting to vintage SM ethusiasts. I do not own one, but perhaps I should, someday maybe.