Royal and New Royal
 

This is from the Springfield Historical site:

St. John Sewing Machine Co. Est 1870 - 1884 Factory: Springfield, Ohio. President: John Foos 1881 Became: Royal Sewing Machine Co., Est 1884 -c1895 Became: Illinois Sewing Machine Co.c1895- 1924 ;Factory: Rockford, Illinois. Became subsidiary of: Free Sewing Machine Co. Moved to: Rockford, Illinois.

Machine Made: Springfield 1876 - 1880 St John Royal St John Model Nos 1, 2, 3. Pre 1881 - 1893+ Improved New Royal

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I was looking over the Royal and noticed it had no lever in the back for lifting the foot. Thought it might be broken off, but there was no where it could have been . . .

then I looked at the front again -

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This is the only machine I have with the foot lift lever in the front - and it's got three positions, high, mid and down.

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The Royal was advertised as running forward regardless of the way the handwheel turned, but I've not checked that out yet.

Curious to see how the Royal works out going backwards. I have some needles stamped New Royal, they look like a 20x1. Nice additions.

Jon

I checked it out and it does feed forward for both clockwise and counterclockwise movement of the flywheel. I can sort of "feel" that there is a mechanism that slides when the wheel direction changes so the feed movement stays forward always. It's up in the pillar and I can't see it easily, so that will have to wait until the machine is serviced.

The slide plate is stuck, so though it did come with a shuttle, I've not been able to compare it to anything yet to see if it's like any of the 12 Boye shuttles, though this machine is from a time earlier than Boye came out with the replacement shuttle set.

This machine is older than I had set for "limits" to my collection, but it's still High Arm so I think that is more the route I've gone - not 1900 and earlier American made, but High Arm machines. Then it does mean I can watch for that Howe . . . and an American #7, maybe even an early White that takes a boat shuttle, but not sure on that . . . though I've got so many Whites, it would be neat to have a really early one, like I have with my Singer 12.

That's a neat feature for a treadle machine-as long as you don't find yourself backing out of your last stitch when you come to a stop like I sometimes do. The front lift lever seems like a good idea too. I wonder why it didn't catch on, it seems to make sense to have all the controls up front.

I think its a good idea to have a few of the earlier machines to illustrate the progression toward the more "modern" machines that you're mainly interested in. (No enabling here.)
Rodney