New Home, badged 'The Williams'. Manufactured in USA 1916.
Came across this machine on my favourite Ebay Charity site last weekend, placed a couple of cautious bids & won it for £28!
I thought it looked old because of its 'leaf spring' type of upper tension & the decals looked good for its age. Never heard of 'The Williams' brand so I assumed it was a badged machine from a biggish manufacturer. (a common practice at the time) I did no other research on it prior to winning it.
Ebay pic above. Looking in need of some TLC & mostly complete - hopefully with its shuttle! It's my first USA made machine so I was confident that I'd find some info on the Victorian Sweatshop forum; )
Sure enough I learned within a couple of hours it is a New Home machine. Made in Orange, Massachusets. New England. This one is a long way from home here in Old England...
The company has a long & complicated history, now a part of Janome & I've actually had a 1960s Janome/New Home in the recent past.
Comes with its original bentwood case & key even: )
The carvings on the ends look very nice to my eye & I just hope it survives the shipping intact.
It has the potential to be a pretty machine after a good clean & service & I'm looking forward to seeing it: )
It could well be here today & I'll add some better pics of it anon.
Feb. 13th, five days later...
Arrived with the bottom of the outer cardboard box sodden, courtesy of shippers DPD. (German Efficiency not)
The actual BHF tape held tight fortunately.
Opened it up to discover the machine upside down... So it had been handled upside down through part of its journey. And the Charity shop packers didn't know how to lock the machine to its base...
You can perhaps imagine my thought processes as I opened it up?
Actually the only apparent damage was that the case lock had detached itself & the case lid had some dents: )
This is one lucky machine! (I removed the slide plate to see if the shuttle was with it)
Shipping VSMs is always a chancy excercise. My last 2 machines shipped were Berninas in their red plastic cases. Both arrived damaged...
Five days later the lock is fixed, the case lid is getting some TLC, and the machine was stitching 3 days ago: )
I didn't even thread it up correctly, tensions were guessed, had a dropped 15x1 needle installed by the previous owner, (Original was 22x1) but it stitched: ) This machine is a survivor!
Turns out to be manufactured in 1916 & will be a pretty machine when it's cleaned up & could easily be good for another 100 years. New Home had a branch office in London & they sold badged machines to UK retailers at that time. Middle of WW1 here, & the year of my fathers birth!
So it's looking good now & I just took some pics this morning for the record: )
It's only had a wipe down with soap & water here, plus a little oil in the appropriate places.
Has a very simple, robust underbed mechanism which is easy to lubricate.
An excellent video of this machine is on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/9LGJUcTVGZI It explains the basics, threading & the way its clever, simple mechanism works. Highly recommended!
There are many different 'badged' versions of this machine in USA & UK. If you don't know this, as I didn't when I bought it, you may never know it is a quality machine made by a famous maker! New Home wasn't as big as Singer of the period, but it is an excellent machine: )
I think the whole machine is in great condition for its age, especially the delicate decals & it is a very satisfying preservation project: ) It will take modern 15x1 needles & spares are available once you know what you are looking for.
21st February 2024
Given it a little clean up here & it's looking promising I reckon: )
Case is simply waxed here with more to come & the machine base might get similar treatment.
March 6th 2024.
This machine has a little competition in the last week, from a German Seidel & Naumann machine 20 years older, but they are both very nice in their different ways; )
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