Originally Posted by
OurWorkbench
Thank you Cari for checking into the company that made Penney's machines. I find it interesting that there is so much info about companies that made machines which were badged by Wards & Sears but not Penney's. I was going by a machine I have that has JA 5 & JC 16 on it but also has "B.I.C." cast into the base. (Side note - why both?? and what is difference between JA & JC designations). I can't imagine a reason why it would have B.I.C. cast in base and a different company's JA numbers.
Janey - Neat people never make the exciting discoveries I do.
All it takes is someone to do the research. I don't know how far back Penneys badged machines with their name. The guy who runs the Yahoo group probably knows. What machine did you show the bottom of? No one knows exactly what the JA/JC #s mean. Some sort of manufacturing codes, but there just isn't any way to search for Japanese records, if there even are any. The database on the VintageJapanese Yahoo group is full of errors. There is a better one on another group but I can't remember which one. I also believe that there was some crossover or connections between some of the Japanese manufacturers at least up into the mid to late 1950s, as I've noticed many times identical parts on machines of different makers. I have Morse and Brother clone machines that are twins. 90% of the time I can spot a Brother machine just from a pic as they are my thing.
Cari