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Ww2 1 out of 200 singer sewing machine

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    Posted 3 years ago

    Miguel_tap…
    (1 item)

    Anyone know more about this sewing machine all i know its from ww2 and they only made 200 of these machines its about 5 ft tall

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    Comments

    1. keramikos, 3 years ago
      Hi, Miguel_tapia12. Cool industrial machine. :-)

      I tried to read what looks like the serial number (in a little elliptical cartouche underneath the Singer medallion and another smaller cartouche), and it looks to me like it might be "AG416033."

      Per the International Sewing Machine Collectors' Society (ISMACS) serial number tables (which they got directly from Singer who endorses them via linkage), that would put it into this block of numbers:

      AG- 415826 416125 231 300 May 26 1942

      http://ismacs.net/singer_sewing_machine_company/serial-numbers/singer-ag-series-serial-numbers.html

      Translated, that would mean that AG416033 was one of a block (415826 through 416125) of 300 serial numbers allotted May 26th, 1942, and they were all destined to be stamped onto model 231 machines.

      Your machine looks nothing like a model 231. Here is a model 231-4:

      http://ismacs.net/singer_sewing_machine_company/model-list/images200-299/231-4.jpg

      What your machine looks like to me is some minor variant of the model 97. Here is the model I think it mostly closely resembles, the 97-5:

      http://ismacs.net/singer_sewing_machine_company/model-list/images0-99/97-5.jpg

      It's not a perfect resemblance, but it's close.

      About the 97 class of machines:

      *snip*

      Large. Cylinder bed; one needle; one shuttle; lockstitch. Stitch set of 3 presser feet, from 3 to 12 spi. Gas heating device for hot wax stitching. For harness work and other heavy work in leather; parachute harnesses, etc. Speed for all models 400 spm

      *snip*

      http://ismacs.net/singer_sewing_machine_company/model-list/classes-1-99.html

      Certainly some of the AG series of serial numbers were supposed to be model 97, just not that block of serial numbers I cited above.

      It's not impossible that the ISMACS serial number table is incorrect; I've seen a few errors in them here and there, but before I would say it's in error, perhaps you could take a close-up picture of the serial number, and add it to your post. I may have misread it. :-)
    2. keramikos, 3 years ago
      Hi again, Miguel_tapia12.

      I see your picture got reoriented. That's good, because there are a lot of people of a certain age here at CW S&T with stiff necks. };-)

      I thought I'd go back out there and look for some actual photographs of Singer model 97 machines, and found some good ones at the leatherworker dot net website:

      https://leatherworker.net/forum/topic/78197-singer-97-10/

      That sure does look like your machine, except for the tray underneath the cylindrical bed. It also has a nice close-up picture of both the model number (97-10) and serial number (AG431595) plates.

      I don't know whether there were any model 97 machines with serial numbers that weren't prefixed with AG, but just for grins, I decided to do a bit of judicious searching and editing of the AG table to smoke out the model 97 machines:

      (The formatting might be a bit rough here in CW S&T, but in Windows Notepad, they line up very nicely.)

      AG- 253201 253275 97 75 December 2 1941
      AG- 391176 391225 97 50 March 3 1942
      AG- 407026 407125 97 100 April 22 1942
      AG- 417526 417725 97 200 July 9 1942
      AG- 426726 426925 97 200 October 22 1942
      AG- 431436 431635 97 200 January 28 1943
      AG- 433086 433285 97 200 May 13 1943
      AG- 444711 444910 97 200 September 21 1943
      AG- 448371 448620 97 250 February 14 1944

      http://ismacs.net/singer_sewing_machine_company/serial-numbers/singer-ag-series-serial-numbers.html

      If you add up the column of serial block numbers, the total is less than 1,500. That is actually a very low number when you compare it with some other Singer models, especially some of the popular domestic machines like the model 15 or the model 66.
    3. keramikos, 3 years ago
      Whoops, I just found one with a non-AG prefix serial number (AK973719):

      https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Product-Service/Singer-97-10-sewing-machine-111961889478976/

      But if you look at the AK serial number table, the model 97 does seem to have been made in small batches of only 100-300 machines.
    4. keramikos, 3 years ago
      Out of curiosity, I decided to comb through all of the Singer serial number tables looking for model 97 machines:

      AB- 208976 209025 97 50 6-Aug 1926
      AD- 826946 826955 97 10 24-Dec 1934
      AE- 50251 50265 97 15 5-Dec 1935
      AE- 279916 279940 97 25 14-Oct 1936
      AF- 300706 300730 97 25 19-Jul 1939
      AF- 461031 461080 97 50 25-Mar 1940
      AF- 683301 683350 97 50 12-Nov 1940
      AF- 901051 901100 97 50 23-Apr 1941
      AG- 102451 102500 97 50 13-Aug 1941
      AG- 253201 253275 97 75 2-Dec 1941
      AG- 391176 391225 97 50 3-Mar 1942
      AG- 407026 407125 97 100 22-Apr 1942
      AG- 417526 417725 97 200 9-Jul 1942
      AG- 426726 426925 97 200 22-Oct 1942
      AG- 431436 431635 97 200 28-Jan 1943
      AG- 433086 433285 97 200 13-May 1943
      AG- 444711 444910 97 200 21-Sep 1943
      AG- 448371 448620 97 250 14-Feb 1944
      AK- 52721 52820 97 100 22-Nov 1950
      AK- 566851 566950 97 100 5-Sep 1951
      AK- 705776 705875 97 100 3-Jan 1952
      AK- 973576 973875 97 300 16-Jul 1952
      AN- 461350 461399 97 50 24-Oct 1962
      G- 6463846 6463895 97 50 9-Oct 1918
      G- 1333401 1333450 97-1 50 27-Jun 1911

      http://ismacs.net/singer_sewing_machine_company/serial-numbers/singer-sewing-machine-serial-number-database.html

      If you total all of the serial number blocks, you get 2,550. That is a very small number of machines when you compare it with, say, the model 66, of which more than 8 million (closer to 9 million than 8) were made over the years it was in production.
    5. keramikos, 3 years ago
      It's interesting to look at the production history on the model 97, using the serial numbers in the Singer/ISMACS tables.

      It looks like its first appearance was in 1911 with a block of 50 serial numbers allotted. Then there was a gap of 7 years before they allotted 50 more in 1918, and another gap of 8 years until they allotted 50 more in 1926.

      It was another 8 years before they allotted a mere 10 in 1934, dropping to a mere 5 allotted in 1935. That was probably the effect of the Great Depression.

      Production picked up again in WWII, which makes sense, given the purpose of this rather specialized industrialized machine which originally was billed as rope stitching, but evolved into harness work:

      https://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollections/Trade-Literature/Sewing-Machines/pdf/sil10-156.pdf#page=7

      https://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollections/Trade-Literature/Sewing-Machines/pdf/sil10-159.pdf

      *snip*

      Possibly the 97-10 was sold to the military for use during WWII, but is was made years before that. It goes back to 1914 , I have been told it was used to sew the oak slats on the canvas aprons for the swatters used to harvest grain before combines were invented.

      *snip*

      https://leatherworker.net/forum/topic/36692-singer-97-10/

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