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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.

Gray's Patent Model

ISMACS News
Issue 29
October 1990
Joshua Gray's Patent Model Sewing Machine

Although Grove and Baker can claim the first portable machine patented in 1856, the company had one rival who it beat to the finish by just two years.

The man to produce a portable in March of 1858 was Joshua Gray from Massachusetts. The patent model he submitted with his application was one of those lost in patent office fires and all that remains is this drawing which accompanied the model.

Because Grover and Baker had beaten him to the portable idea he did not claim this as a patentable invention, but used his machine to claim letters of patent on an adjustable feed mechanism.

~Graham Forsdyke


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