Dragging Old Singers Into The Post WWII Era - Revco Reverse

For a while now I've been toying with the idea of getting a Revco reverse regulator for a machine.  I've seen a few around, but unfortunately I would have had to buy yet another 66 to get one.  So I passed on them.  Then last week this one showed up on Ebay.

I was a little excited to see a Revco Reverse unattached.  I put my bid in, a bit higher than the initial bid, thinking that it would be one of those things people get excited about.  I was wrong.  Who knows, maybe the price was ridiculously high.  Whatever the reason I won the auction at the initial bid price and waited expectantly for my Revco Reverse to arrive.  It got here about an hour ago.

Now granted, I know that reverse on a sewing machine is a fix for a problem that really doesn't exist.  There are several ways to tack a stitch without using reverse.  But dangit a little lever that makes the machine do tricks is neat.  It's the one modern thing I want on all my machines.  So there.

There will be a post with a video in the next few days of me installing it.  I'm probably going to put it on the 1908 27.  Today's post is more about clearing up some wrong information on the internet about the device

I have seen credit given, most notably on Needlebar (I don't even link to there, because it's just a bad resource), for this reverse given to Ralph L Abos, with Laurence M Stanfield and Robert B Myers.  That's incorrect.  The Abos patent (US2562009A) applied for in 1948 and granted in 1951 was for an different design that does not resemble this reverse regulator at all.

What we all know as the Revco Reverse, patent US2523586, had an application date of March 3rd 1945 by Robert B Myers and Donald E Craven.  The patent was granted on Sept 26, 1950.

The earliest I can find any advertising for the Myers/Craven design in July 7, 1946 from Lima, Ohio.

Note that it is sold for about 195 dollars in today money by a Hoover shop and not by Marge at Your Singer Sewing Center (advertising to the left) located two and a half blocks away.  I wonder if Marge did the occasional drive-by of the Hoover place for corrupting her machines.  Sadly, it appears that Your Singer Sewing Center of Lima, Ohio was bulldozed to make room for a convention hall at some point.

I haven't found any documentation showing the Abos design having sold.

Just to drive home the point, and to put more pictures up in this post.  Here is the patent drawing for the Myers/Craven design.

The drawing gives several variations for the hand lever.  It looks like figure 3 is the one actually produced.

For final comparison here is the drawing for the Abos patent.

 

It is a cool design.  I'm thinking about recreating this one by forging it out of aluminum.  But the design is not even close to what we call a Revco Reverse.

Another neat tidbit.  Both applications reference the ultra-cool slap lever reverse patented in 1914 (US1118271A) by Philip Diehl (awarded the year after his death) for Singer. Diehl's drawing presented his lever on IF derivative looking machine (Edit: After paying attention to what I was looking at.  The Diehl reverse patent drawing was a perfect representation of a Singer 103, which was produced with the slap lever reverse... jeeze.  It's on the buy list now).

The installation post and video will be up in a few days.