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International Sewing Machine Collectors' Society

The purpose of the International Sewing Machine Collectors' Society is to foster the collecting of, and research into, sewing machines.

What you got with a Willcox

Graham Forsdyke
ISMACS News
April 1992
Issue No. 35

I'VE OFTEN wondered just how many of the accessories that come with a machine actually started life with the model and how many were added by the proud owner.

A page in a Willcox & Gibbs price guide at least gives me some idea for the future.

When a proud new owner opened up her W&G for the first time she found quite an array of accessories packed with it. She would receive a guide and screw, a hemmer, a gatherer, a quilter, self-sewer and a braider to help with the sewing.

Also in the package was a needle wrench -- presumably the booklet was never re-written for the English market where we would call it a spanner -- an oilcan filled with W&G's own brand "Cosmoline" and instruction book, a packet of 12 needles and a quaintly-named stiletto.

The stiletto is obviously the long ultra-sharp device looking somewhat like a knitting needle which, I guess, was used to pick away at accumulated thread wound around the hook.

I've always found this stiletto to be of such good steel and manufacture that it make a fine scriber for marking out use on steel in the workshop.

Optional accessories, at extra cost, included a variety of different-sized hemmers, fringers, etc, and even special looper scissors and an oil-stone for sharpening needles.


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