Oiling points, parts names, needles, models, and Willcox & Gibbs serial numbers are all included. THE BOOK CONTAINS THE LATEST SERIAL NUMBER CALCULATIONS FOR DATING EVEN A-SERIES MACHINES. The book is now available on Amazon all around the world as in instant download ON ANY portable device with the free Kindle reading App. It is a Wilcox & Gibbs chain stitcher serial number B587655 and a model 64 I believe. I don't know what year because all I can find is a dating chart for the series A machines. I have it functioning, but the needle was broke so I can't tell if it will fully function or not.

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The following revised rationale of Willcox & Gibbs serial numbers, painstakingly researched by Bill Grewe, initiated this revealing correspondence between the author and ISMACS’ Graham Forsdyke..

When Willcox & Gibbs began their partnership, keeping records of their sewing machine production dates, and serial numbers was not a top priority. They were focused on making sewing machines. According to Grace Rogers Cooper’s book “The Sewing Machine: It’s Invention and Development”, page 40, “After taking out two minor patents (on December 16, 1856, and January 20, 1857), Gibbs obtained his important one, U.S. patent No. 17,427 on June 2, 1857.” It is from this date that we can trace the birth of the cute machines that we have come to know and love.

Willcox And Gibbs Sewing Machine Serial Number Lookup

While we may never know the actual production numbers of W&G earliest sewing machines, with a few mathematical calculations and reasonable assumptions we can come up with a much improved early serial number dating guide. The mathematical calculations will all be based on data presented in Cooper’s book. The reasonable assumption is that a start-up sewing machine company’s production will be done at a linear (gradual slope) pace and will have some correlation to the production (and sales) of other sewing machine companies at that time. Said another way, it takes time to ramp up production and it would be unreasonable to have a brand new sewing machine company immediately outproduce well established companies.

The early Willcox & Gibbs dating guide that we have right now comes from Cooper’s book, page 123:

1857-1866 – 10,000 per year

1867-1870 – 14,999 per year

This distribution of production is a simple accommodation. Consider The Combination production numbers that Cooper’s book reports on page 40 for established companies in 1857:

Wheeler & Wilson 4,591

Singer 3,630

Grover & Baker 3,680

AB Howe 133

Leavitt 195

Ladd & Webster 453

Bartholf 31

It is unreasonable to assume that in the last 6 months of 1857 that a start-up sewing machine company would out-produce an established maker – much less produce 10,000 machines. So clearly there is room for improvement on Cooper’s dating guide.

A generous start-up production number for W&G in 1857 would be 100 – more than Bartholf and just under Howe – both established companies. In 1858 another healthy production figure would be 900 – making W&G the 4th largest sewing machine maker at the time – a rapid rise indeed. 1859 would prove to be a boom year as all companies had production increases of 2 or 3 times the previous year – so we will increase W&G production to a level of 3,000 machines. And we will double that again in 1860 to a level of 6,000. In 1861, at the start of the Civil War, this rapid sewing machine expansion was halted, but overall production increases for Wheeler & Wilson and Singer continued throughout the war years – see Cooper’s chart on page 40 – so we can assume that W&G continued to make gradual production increases.

On the other end of Cooper’s W&G production numbers there is also room for improvement of the 14,999 per year allocated from 1867-1870. The accuracy of these numbers can be improved simply by using Cooper’s chart on page 40 which shows the number of sewing machines licensed to The Combination for W&G:

1867 – 14,152

1868 – 15,000

1869 – 17,201

1870 – 28,890

It is curious why Cooper didn’t do this originally since she used the W&G numbers reported to The Combination in that same chart for the years 1871-1876.

Another mathematical adjustment of Cooper’s W&G numbers starts with the overall production number (1857–1876) of 279637 – the last serial number. If we add up all the W&G numbers reported to the Combination numbers from 1867- 1876 we get 195,880. Subtracting 195,880 from the overall production of 279,637 leaves us 83,757 worth of production to spread amongst the years 1857–1866. This is fewer than the 100,000 total (10K per year) that Cooper allocated.

With the above mathematical adjustments and the reasonable assumption of a gradual start-up and linear growth in concert with other top sewing machine makers, here is the new and improved W&G serial number dating chart:

Year	Production Estimate	Serial Numbers
1857	100	1-100
1858	900	101-1000
1859	3,000	1001-4000
1860	6,000	4001-10000
1861	11,257	10001-21257
1862	11,500	21258-32757
1863	12,000	32758-44757
1864	12,500	44758-57257
1865	13,000	57258-70257
1866	13,500	70258-83757
1867	14,152	83758-97909
1868	15,000	97910-112909
1869	17,201	112910-130110
1870	28,890	130111-159000
1871	30,127	159001-189127
1872	33,639	189128-222766
1873	15,881	222727-238647
1874	13,710	238648-252357
1875	14,522	252358-266879
1876	12,758	266880-279637

PRODUCTION NUMBERS from The Combination Report (Cooper, page 40)

The biggest change is in the years 1857-1860 where Cooper allocated 40,000 machines and the new allocation is for 10,000. After that the allocations gradually get closer together until they match The Combination report starting in 1871. This matches my personal observation of early W&G serial numbers being dated according to Cooper’s chart and frequently showing a production date earlier than the patent dates on the machine. Bill Grewe ([email protected])

From Graham Forsdyke

Thanks Bill. A very well thought out and argued paper. Let me devil’s advocate one point: the number of machines made in the early years and the linear growth theory.

You compare the low initial sales of other companies (Singer, W&W) to the relatively high

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Willcox And Gibbs Sewing Machine Serial Number Lookup

From Graham Forsdyke

Willcox And Gibbs Serial Numbers