Welcome to Quilting Board. That sure is an anomaly. Generally, Singer machines would have an actual Singer badge and the early German Singer machines would have a serial number that started with a "C".
At first, I thought it was a company that sold machines for Singer. Sometimes distributors would sell machines for well known companies. I bought an Alco that was sold by the Necchi distributor, but was not actually a Necchi machine. However, I did
a search and found a thread on another board that gave some rumors about the German Lotus machines. One mentioned the possibility of it being made by Haid & Neu for Singer. So I did some more research and found a
Fiddlebase link that says
In 1951 the company Haid & Neu entered into a license and supply agreement with Singer Nähmaschinen Aktiengesellschaft (AG) in Frankfurt.
So my speculation is that it was probably made in the very early 1950s.
I also found
this link of a lotus German Singer, which shows an extension that it was probably sold as a treadle. Also many machines that started as a treadle would have a spoked handwheel as yours does. I'm wondering, too, if your machine is a full size machine. Some of the pictures look like it may be a little smaller than a full size machine. At first I thought it might be a Spartan type machine, but those have a drop in bobbin (as does the 201) and the stitch length regulator is different.
So without a lot of documentation with a machine it is a lot of speculation on trying to truly identifying a machine. Even with documentation it can be a problem. I know a lot of manuals from the 1950s do not have a copyright date or actual name of a company on them. Even some that might have a name like Montgomery Wards on the manual, that doesn't mean that is who actually made the machine.
Janey - Neat people never make the exciting discoveries I do.
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