Label Discoveries

As the English Sewing Cotton Company, latterly English Sewing Limited, developed over the decades of the 20th century, so did the labels on their Sylko reels. It seems impossible to pinpoint when exactly Sylko labels were subject to often tiny changes and how many differences there are in existance.

One end of the reels hardly altered - the red, white and blue logo end with the 3 shells branding. Not until the Tootal years did anyone dare mess with this branding.  It the blue and white ends stating the colour shade and number have myriad differences.

And even after years and years of collecting  - for me it must be more than a decade now - those little surprises keep on popping up. Here's a new one, discovered in an antiques shop in Hebden Bridge this week:


I have never before seen that wording "Fast to B.S. 3418-61". On all other reels that I have, the label simply states "Fast Dye". See the reel here with others for comparison:


I would say that the Blue Crest reel end label is later than the others, the style looks more modern, just pre plastic reel era. So that means that the fast wording was just a temporary change. If it had been permanent, there would have been more reels like this and I would have seen one before anyway.

How curious, and what does it mean? "BS" usually stands for British Standard. Beyond that, I have no idea what or why. Another illustration of the ongoing fascination of collecting Sylko reels, and the mysteries to be chased.

Check out the Agatha d'Ascoyne Papers here






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