Now don’t get me wrong, it’s a great machine. They were easy to operate, easy to load, easy to understand.īy comparison, even in the 20s and 30s, German companies like Wertheim, or Frister & Rossmann, were still manufacturing machines like this – vibrating shuttle machines. In the 1920s and 30s, companies like White, or Singer, in America, were producing compact, easy-to-use, round-bobbin machines, very similar to the types of domestic sewing machines still manufactured today. We know this, because it’s a vibrating-shuttle machine, and not an older transverse-shuttle machine (which were still being made in the 1930s in Germany!).Īlthough German machines were highly innovative in some areas, in other areas, they rather tended to lag behind the competition. Secondly, it would’ve been one of the company’s later machines. First: it was marketed for the English-speaking market. Not a gigantically-enormous amount, but we do know a bit. I mean in theory, they’d all do the same thing – they all sewed, but like those ads for ‘V’ energy-drink, the German ones had that massive hit, which improved them a bit. It was little touches like this which made German machines popular, and American machines seem…I dunno…’adequate’…by comparison. Depending on the machine, the extraction lever might just nudge the shuttle up, or it might flick it up into the air! This would flick the shuttle out of the machine to make it easier to extract, to refill the bobbin. After advancing the shuttle through the race to the point of extraction, sliding back the plate to take out the shuttle would catch a lever inside the race. The back of the machine, revealing the detail of the decorations and gold-leaf applications.įeatures like an auto-stop bobbin-winder, or a forward-reverse lever (something which SINGER didn’t have until WELL after the Second World War, but which German machines had back in the Edwardian era!), or even built-in measuring tapes on the bases of the machine-beds, for convenience in measuring, or even – built-in pin-cushions!Īnother feature common to German sewing machines, and seen only occasionally on American ones, was what I like to call the ‘shuttle-launcher’. They also had features which most American machines wouldn’t have for a good long while!
This made the machines smoother, quieter and easier to operate for longer periods of time. German machines had gears which were more precisely cut and fitted, than their American counterparts. German-made machines differed from their American cousins in a number of ways, both good, and bad. What Made German Sewing Machines Different? This machine may not sound like a piano, but certainly is as sleek as one! Unlike American companies, where sewing machine manufacturers made…sewing machines (Duuuuuuuuuuuh!)…German manufacturers made much more! Seidel & Naumann, for example, also made bicycles…and typewriters! Wertheim made sewing machines…and pianos! Wertheim pianos were extremely popular in Australia, where a factory was set up to manufacture them.
While many people would swear by Singer, the Germans were giving the Americans a serious run for their money in the sewing machine department! And in cars! Radios…typewriters…hey, you just can’t beat German engineering, guys… Or NEW HOME.Īlong with big names like Frister & Rossmann, and Seidel & Naumann, Wertheim was one of the most popular manufacturers, during the 1800s and early 1900s, of German-made sewing machines. It was produced by the Wertheim company, which was one of the major European competitors to big-name American brands like…I dunno…SINGER. What we have here, my curious compadres, is a German-made sewing machine, manufactured sometime in the 1920s. I also picked up a mini-hernia trying to lug it home afterwards! Isn’t it a beauty? I picked up this beauty at my local auction-house. “Made in Germany! Y’know the Germans always make good stuff! Y’followin’ me, camera-guy? It sews, it patches, it fixes, it goes forwards and backwards! It can even sit on your shelf and look a darn sight more decorative than the modern junk you could buy today! Ain’t that right, Charlie!? Charlie says ‘Yes indeed, folks!'”
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