The Singer Model 15, the universal sewing machine

I have become very fond of the model 15, They are easy to service and easy to sell, because they are a great all around sewing machine. They have stitch length adjustment, reverse and feed dogs that can be lowered for free hand and darning. Button holers and zig-zaggers are easy to find and use they are not expensive to buy.

But more than that, this is a machine that has been in production in form or another since the 1880's to the present day. Yes, you can still buy a brand new one, it won't say Singer on it, but it's still a model 15 with all the same features and parts will be interchangeable with the Singer version. Should you wish to have one, the esteemed Nan Yaun Sewing Equipment Company in Hong Kong will sell you one, (with a hand crank, case extra) for just under U$50.00 plus shipping.

The modern machines are sold into Asia as commercial sewing machines, and there is a fair chance something you are wearing today was sewn on one of them. They are sold under the brand names like Carnation or Butterfly.

How this came be is a curious tale. In US occupied, post war Japan, the Military government, headed by General Douglas MacArthur, found it self governing a nation on the verge of economic and social collapse. During the war, most of Japan's industry had been converted to military production and them bombed or burnt out by the Americans. Unemployment was high, starvation threatened many and hungry people tend to be prone to disorder and riot.

In an effort to get the Japanese economy moving again, the US gave some Japanese industrialists a set of blue prints for a Singer model and told them they should start making them for export. Then they banned the importation of sewing machines into Japan, banned foreign ownership of sewing machine manufacturing companies and then got the US government to drop all import tariffs on Japanese sewing machines. I suspect that they did this with other consumer products too.

What Singer thought of this, I do not know, but I imagine they were not pleased at all. First they had to get rid of their plant in Japan, They were banned from exporting to Japan from anywhere else, and worst of all, they had to watch as a flood of lower priced Japanese copies of their design, came into the US market. These 'clones" as they came to be called, nearly put Singer out of business. Other companies like White, threw in the towel on their US production facilities and started to sell 'branded' clones instead.

I have seen them branded, White, Piedmont, Morse, Viking, Kenmore, Woodsonia, and just about any other department store house brand you can mention. Remember, this was the 1950's and just about every household had a sewing machine, as it was still cheaper to make your own clothes than buy them. They sold in the millions......And, they came in colors, blue, teal, red, black, and others, (even pink!), no more stodgy Singer black and gold!

Nothing stays the same, and the Japanese manufacturers, started to improve and evolve the original model 15 design. The lovely teal White, in a previous blog is an evolved model clone. It has the same oscillating hook, uses the same bobbin and has the tensioner on the needle bar cover. It's a Model 15 in fancy dress....

  Impressive no?
Singer sold millions of them, the Japanese made millions of them, the Chinese continue to make them today: more than 130 years after they first came onto the market. They helped rebuild the Japanese economy, made Singer rich and founded a whole new school of sewing machine design....amazing, I think, especially as I sell these marvels for about $85.00 apiece.