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Re: wool ply history



Karin

This is not my area of expertise, but I suspect that it would be difficult to date a textile by the spin/ply of the yarns. As I understand it, the introduction of spinning machinery across Europe was uneven even within certain regions, and that it occurred over more than 70 years. Throughout that period local or regional machinists (to use an anachronistic word) would have concocted their own--meaning that if we could locate enough information about this or that machine yes it would tell us only about the output of that machine, but there's no guarantee that another machine somewhere else didn't produce something reasonably similar.

It is also likely that older machines were either re-jigged and used for long periods, either where they were originally installed or else sold and used elsewhere.

And I would imagine that spinning standards would not have been enforced until after about 1850, when they would have applied so widely that collecting such information wouldn't tell you much.

I would be pleased to be corrected, though.

Cheers!

Sarah

Sarah Lowengard
New York, NY