We’ve just updated our DMC thread tracker inventory sheet to include a few threads like the super rare thread 974, the limited edition DMC 127, and the rather odd Secret Perfume threads, but this raises a rather interesting question; why do we keep discovering DMC threads?
Our recent post on aging DMC threads came at a perfect time for one reader, who asked about a thread she’d not seen anything about; DMC 3684. This thread has literally no information online at all, and if it wasn’t for her showing us images like the one below, I’m not sure we’d believe it! But there is a DMC 3684. So how come it taken over 10 years of us sourcing DMC threads on our journey to collect them all to find this new thread?
I’m not sure if you all know, but we’ve worked directly with the DMC company to source all known thread numbers, so finding a new thread does seem suspect. But it’s not. You see, it’s all about DMC’s history.
A Little DMC Thread Company History
I’ll keep this really simple as no one wants to read a book on DMC history, but we need to talk about what happened before 1961.
Before 1961, the DMC company was only really selling in France, with limited permeation into other markets across the world. This meant that there was a lot of competition from other brands, one of which, the Thiriez & Cartier Bresson company, was by far the leader. We’re a little unsure of the specifics, but in 1961, the DMC company and the Thiriez & Cartier Bresson company merged. The DMC thread company, as the larger of the two (due to selling wools, and other fibers) remained as its name, and the horse logo came from the Thiriez & Cartier Bresson company.
But importantly, they combined their embroidery threads into one collection.
Discovering DMC Threads
This doesn’t do ahead without issues though.
The first thing to note is that there were more Thiriez & Cartier Bresson threads than DMC. They added as much as they could in (which is why we have odd numbering systems for DMC threads by the way), but others were too closely aligned so had to be abandoned.
Then there were other threads that were similar enough, but DMC’s dye formulations were more expensive, so the DMC thread was abandoned.
And then there was simply a case of having too many threads. DMC couldn’t go from producing under 250 threads to over 600, so many were cut for the sake of simplicity.
And these threads, are the ones we don’t know anything about.
Why Don’t We Know About Them?
The DMC company is great at keeping records, in fact, they have a museum in their head office, but this started AFTER the merger. This means all those threads abandoned during the merger weren’t recorded anywhere.
For some reason, even though record-keeping was started quickly after the merger, no one kept any log of colors.
This is why DMC themselves don’t even know which threads are missing. Threads from pre-1961 (or the merger date) are simply unaccounted for.
Are There More DMC Threads To Discover?
Almost definitely.
Whilst many of the threads from this period are rare due to their use, rare due to DMC not being as big as it is now, or simply left unlabeled, we know that there were likely to be about 30 threads unaccounted for that DMC abandoned during the merger. In addition to that, there could (and probably is) far more that were abandoned before this, such as DMC 3894; and we simply have no idea how many of these there are!
Do you have any unknown threads? Please reach out, as we want to catalog them all!
Happy stitching!
Lord Libidan