Extremely rare Heinrich Grossmann Alemannia Box Hand stitch machine Millinery

Extremely rare German Heinrich Grossmann Alemannia "Box" hand stich hat making machine. It dates from the early 1900's and is a very important machine in the hat making industry / Millinery.

Read some of the interesting history below. This is a museum piece but of course it can be used if you wish to do so. The machine is complete and in very good condition but does need servicing. It turns but very stiff at the moment.

It is displayed on a wooden frame in the photographs. I will include this in the sale if you want it but It needs to be altered to size. As you can see in the photographs it needs to be on a wooden frame or on a table. The machine will not sit flat on a table as it has an embossment underneath.

Even as late as 1865 pundits declared that there would never be a sewing machine that could sew a straw hat. Within a decade Willcox and Gibbs had proved them wrong with the visible-stitch straw-hat machine which dominated the Luton-based hat trade until 1887 when the company, working closely with the Luton factory owner Edmund Wiseman, produced the Hand-Stitch Straw Hat machine.

It was completely different from the visible stitch - yet another variant of the domestic machine. The hand stitcher had two needles, one eye-pointed and the other barbed, allowing the thread to pass from one to the other, revolutionised the hat-making industry. By foot power alone it was said to be possible to produce as many as 144 hats in a 10-hour day on one machine. This Machine is the high quality German copy.

Machines in Dresden, Germany prior. Were appropriated by the nazis for the. Making of gun mechanisms due to the. Precision machinery and capable work. Factory was levelled by allied bombing. In 1943, destroying all company records. Check out my other items. Be sure to add me to your favorites list.