What's your favorite bit of Vintage Sewing machine trivia?
 

I'm supposed to give a talk in April at a quilt guild and I wanted to know what people find to be the "interesting tidbits".

I have a lot of the Singer history, but I'm a little light on some of the other history.

I'll go first:

Sewing machines had cams before cars did. :)

Isaac Singer was a pretty interesting person from the little history I read. I'm pretty sure you know more than I do.
Rodney

The trick I use to tell that is the last thread guide before you thread the needle. It will always pull the thread toward the side the needle threads from. Thanks for mentioning that! I will put it in my notes. :)

Mmmm,... samples! I will try to bond with some of those attachments. Some of them are quite character building at first.

Yes, I would definitely have to touch on the postwar Japanese sewing machine history.

I plan on taking a clone, a 15, a featherweight, a lovely German machine (Winselmann) with me... are there others I should take? I am also going to be doing a half day class on some maintenance with some of the ladies, so I plan to take a motor that is disassembled, my "tool kit", etc. I'm wondering about other visuals, as well.

my favorite bit of trivia... "Singer did not invent the sewing machine" You would be AMAZED how many people think he did....

the different decals. dont forget to mention the one that was banned, the naked lady, showing the nipple ooooohhhh

Ditto Steve. Can you show a few pics of various cabinet styles, and Before and Afters to show the miracles that can be done with love and elbow grease? Is the Winselman a handcrank?

Who started the scant quarter inch seam and why did they settle on it? Barny

The narrow hemmer isn't adjustable and only does 1/4". Of course, nearly all domestic patterns have a 5/8" SA

No, Several other people made large steps toward it before he did, and Elias Howe has the distinction of inventing the Lockstitch sewing machine, if memory serves. :) What Singer excelled at, and what they continue to trade on to this day, is "marketing". They were pretty much the first "retail financing" as best I could tell. You could make payments on a machine, which made them affordable which is what got them more than 90% market share at the turn of the last century... innovation wasn't strictly their forte. For an uninformed person like me, their production line was impressive too. I wonder if I can get the Scottish archives to let me show parts of that video for the presentation...

Hah! There was one of those on the board recently too. :) Do you remember whose (who's?) machine it was?

I have a few examples of machines for sure. I will definitely make note to mention that I've never actually ended up with a vintage parts machine. (if I qualify that in this case I mean mid-1960s-ish or older.) Cabinets I don't have a huge amount of experience with, I can't even tell you which cabinets I have here.

This is the Winselmann Handcrank:
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My cousin has it now, but has said I can borrow it for the trip.

No idea, for that matter, -when- did that start? The ladies want a talk on vintage sewing machines, I can't think of a lot of machines that even have 1/4" markings on the plates prior to about mid-1950? When scant came about?