International Sewing Machine Collectors' Society

Fostering the collecting of, and research into, sewing machines.

Secret Singer Sewing Machines

Singer didn’t always want you to know a machine was a Singer. Sometimes they built machines for other firms. Sometimes they quietly sold “budget” machines under different names so the Singer brand wouldn’t take the hit. Kristina Santilla and J. C. Verdegay explore that in these two ISMACS News articles.

Part 1
Why would Singer build machines that weren’t labeled Singer? This first installment covers Singer manufacturing for other companies (Boudoir, Domestic, Davis) and early Singer-adjacent machines sold under different branding (New York Favorite, Meteor), before diving into the original Hexagon program.
Part 2 - The Spanish Connection
Hexagon moves to Spain: Singer’s business structure, local competition, and why vibrating shuttle machines struggled there. Then the twist—postwar Spain brings Hexagon back via Rápida/Wertheim, leading to the most-produced Hexagon model of them all, and finally the transition into Singer’s Spanish 800-series era.

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