From Steel Crochet Hooks to Circular Needles: The Selter Story in Altena

A workshop built on wire

According to the company’s history, Peter Heinrich Selter moved to Altena in 1810 and learned wire drawing before opening a steel crochet-hook business in 1829. Wire drawing was a local skill and industry: metal was pulled through dies to make it thinner and more uniform. Visit Altena local-heritage guide also documents a water-powered wire-drawing site in use into the nineteenth century, offering separate context for the regional industry. [6] That background matters. The first chapter is not a modern knitting-needle brand appearing fully formed, but a small metalworking business turning a regional material skill toward a tool people could use in their hands. [1][3]

The company’s own publications disagree about the range of crochet hooks made around 1860. Its current online history says the catalogue had grown to roughly 600 types; a 2023 press dossier gives 260. Neither source explains whether it counts sizes, forms, materials or catalogue entries in the same way. It would be misleading to choose one number and present it as settled. Read together, the sources support a more cautious conclusion: by the mid-nineteenth century, Selter was describing a varied hook business rooted in wire-working expertise. A discrepancy in a company archive is not a nuisance to hide; it is a clue about how corporate histories are assembled and revised. [1][3]

That distinction also helps us avoid a familiar mistake: attaching the company’s founding date to every product it sells today. The 1829 date belongs to the steel crochet-hook workshop. It does not establish that circular knitting needles, the addi name or the current production line existed at the same time. The later tool grew from a much longer chain of decisions, experiments and changes in demand. [1][2]

The people behind the name

When Eugen Selter died during the First World War, the company says his wife, Josefine, continued the business. After the Second World War, Hella Selter and her husband Gustav Adolf took on leadership. In the 1950s, Hella helped create the addi name and the company’s first product catalogue. The name, the company explains, came from her husband’s nickname. That detail shifts the story away from a simple succession of male owners: Hella’s work made a range of tools legible to customers and gave it an identity that could travel beyond the workshop. [1]

A catalogue is not just a list. It selects what to show, how to name it and which differences matter to a buyer. A new brand can turn many small objects into a recognisable family. In a tool business, that editorial labour sits alongside the physical work of drawing wire, shaping points and finishing metal. The company history is the source for Hella’s role, so this article treats it as a documented company account rather than an independently verified biography. The source does not give enough evidence to assign every individual design or production decision to her. [1]

Thomas Selter took over management in 1971. Circular needles were already part of the range, but the company describes them as a relatively minor product at that point. After a downturn in knitting during the 1980s, the firm’s relationship with US distributor Skacel became important to the company’s later recovery and to the visibility of addi Turbo circular needles. The account is useful for understanding one manufacturer’s response to a changing market; it should not be mistaken for a complete statistical history of knitting in Germany or North America. [1]

Claudia Malcus took over the business in 2020. The company records that she joined in 1986 as a commercial trainee and later worked across several departments. That path is a reminder that manufacturing leadership is often built through years of knowledge about purchasing, production, sales and people—not only through a single act of invention. Again, the available account is the company’s own; it offers a useful chronology but not a full archive of every worker’s contribution. [1]

How a circular needle is made

addi’s production feature describes 21 steps for one representative circular needle. A brass tube is shaped at one end into a Basic or Lace point; the other end is prepared to receive the cable. The metal is cleaned and polished so the tip can enter a stitch without snagging the yarn. The company describes the sequence in detail, including further precision work before plating. At step ten, the prepared pieces pass through 25 electroplating baths, according to the company’s account. These numbers describe the manufacturer’s process for this product, not a universal standard for circular needles. [2]

The cable is cut to length and joined to the metal tip. That small join is where manufacturing becomes tactile for a knitter. If a loop catches as it crosses the transition, the hands notice—even when the cable and metal look smooth from a distance. The company itself describes joining the cable and tip as a specialised task and emphasises a seamless transition. That is a useful statement about the maker’s priorities, but it is not an independent comparative test proving that one brand lasts longer or works better than another. [2]

The company also says that 93 per cent of its product range is made in Germany. That figure describes the range as the company presents it; it does not mean every raw material or every component comes from Germany. Nor should separate references to 21 production steps and “up to 25” steps in company material be collapsed into one fixed count: the product and counting method may differ. Good reading keeps the scope of a manufacturer’s claim attached to the claim itself. [2][4]

Reading the object in your hands

Try following a loop slowly from one tip, over the join and onto the cable. Does the yarn glide? Does the point enter a tight stitch without splitting its plies? Does the cable bend comfortably for the project, or spring back into a shape that interrupts your rhythm? These are not abstract product features: the answers depend on yarn, stitch size, technique and the knitter’s hands. A very sharp point may help with lace or paired decreases; a rounder point may feel more forgiving with a lofty yarn. The right tool is the one that supports the work in front of you.

The company records a change in surface finish in 2017, from nickel plating to a white-bronze finish. That change is one reason not to imagine that a modern circular needle is simply the same steel hook the workshop made in 1829. The brass tube, surface finish, cable and connection have different material and production histories. A tool can carry a company’s name across generations while its construction changes substantially. [1][2]

A museum machine can help us think about how textile production expanded beyond handwork, but it must be read with the same care as a tool catalogue. The machine shown below is held by the German Museum of Technology in Berlin and is described as a circular knitting machine from around 1920, used to make pot scourers. It is not Selter equipment and does not document the addi factory. It is a comparison object that places circular knitting within a wider German history of mechanised textile production. [Image 5]

A short timeline

• 1810 — Peter Heinrich Selter moves to Altena and learns wire drawing, according to the company history. [1]
• 1829 — He begins a steel crochet-hook business. This is not the founding date of the modern circular-needle line. [1][3]
• After 1915 — Josefine Selter continues the business following Eugen Selter’s death during the First World War. [1]
• 1950s — Hella Selter helps establish the addi name and the first product catalogue. [1]
• 1971 — Thomas Selter takes over management; circular needles are already in the range, though still secondary. [1]
• After 1986 — A market downturn and the relationship with US distributor Skacel shape the next chapter. [1]
• 2017 — The company records a move from nickel plating to a white-bronze finish. [1]
• 2020 — Claudia Malcus takes over the company. [1]

Editorial note. The Selter timeline relies chiefly on company-published history and product information. Where its publications disagree, the disagreement is stated. The photographs are licensed contextual comparisons, not evidence of the specific products or factory events described.

A tool is also a record of work

The next time you pick up a circular needle, look beyond its name. Consider the wire-working town behind the company, the steel crochet hook that came first, the women who sustained and shaped the business, the catalogue that gave its tools a public identity, and the workers who finish the points and join them to the cable. Then test the join with the yarn you actually plan to use. The history is large; the clue in your hands is small. Together, they make a more honest story of how a familiar tool came to be.