My Spools
It took a decent amount of research, see below, to find information but to have the label specifically (Kerr Thread Company) K.T.Co in Fall River Massachusetts, places the production between 1897 and 1908 leaning towards the earlier rather than later for three of the four threads.
At first I didn't notice the difference in the labels but after some further inspection the two are actually different.
The older is labeled "Knitting and Crochet Pure "Silkateen"" and there isn't any mention of a trademark which is on a lot of labels from the same time period.
The newer blue one says "Mercerized crochet cotton "Silkateen"" and underneath it there is a trade mark notice.
In super tiny letters at the bottom it says "American Thread Co. Succr, made at willimantic. comm." And at very very bottom has a partially cut off note about Reg US... something, I can't read the last word.
The blue also had some paper all the way on the inside of it that I could faintly see. I took the last yard or two of the thread off and it was an ad for the new sizes of thread. Unfortunately it was on some very degraded paper which fell apart after I removed it so I had to re-mount it in sections.
Looking at the label it seems that the "standard" size would have been labeled as "E".
This puts my thread at 127 to 116 years old, but closer to the 127 mark. After doing the dating I really want to use my 'new' (they're probably from the 1880's) knitting pins to make something with them as they are about the same age.
Modern Substitutions
It measures at 15 wpcm, which is actualy a difficult size to find. It falls right inbetween DMC perle 5 (12wpcm) and 8 (17wpcm). To get the right finish/ texture I think that DMC perle would be the closes match.
The size issue is the same with Aunt Lydia's Crochet Thread, Classic 10 is 13wpcm and Fine 20 is 20wpcm.
When it comes to size, HH Lizbeth cotton no 10 at 14wpcm is going to be the closest that is still made, but Aunt Lydias no 10 (13wpcm) will be the closest, most accessable, substitute for Silkateen in terms of size. DMC coton a broder no 18 is the same size, but that thread has been discontinud for quite a while.
Learn more about substituting historial and vintage yarns and thread.
And while they don't have color numbers or names, the closest DMC1 color, from left to right is: 815 (medium garnet), 517 (dark wedgewood), ecru, and 224 (very light shell pink).
Historical
First Manufacture
Silkateen was probably first sold in the late 1890's or early 1900's. Looking at simmilar items, mine was made by Kerr Thread Company (K.T.Co) in Fall River Massachustets. The name "Silkateen" was coppywritten in 1897, with a stated starting use date of July 20, 1897, although that doesn't mean they weren't selling the same thing under a different name beforehand.
Kerr Thread Company was bought by the American Thread Company in 1898.
As of 1908 the trade mark was officially in the name of American Thread Company, rather than Kerr, so I would make an educated guess that the label would have changed by then as well.
Star Needlework Journal published by The American Thread Company. This add appears in Volume 10, number 2 and was published in 1925
The Drama!
There was quite a debate over weather or not Silkateen and other products like Silkine were false advertising. And this wasn't a small debate either. Normally cases of false advertising would be talked about in relevant papers: see the Textile World Journal below
or legal circles but the debate over Silkateen made it to a congressional hearing, a summary of which is below (the end of the first page and beginning of the second):
In the end, companies changed their branding before any laws could or had to be passed over this issue. By the time the advertisement at the top of the page was published, American Star had started putting quotation marks around "Silkateen" which probably didn't solve the issue of consumers thinking it was real silk but it did solve the legal problem, which was all that really mattered.
- This is a bit blasphemous as DMC would have been an active, albeit foreign, competitor to the American Star Co. ↩︎
Leave a Reply