So. y'all wanted me to keep you posted on my adventures as a Thrift-Store Manager?

[Richard Steele]

Mix yerself a stiff one
and recline comfortably with it in your hand
before reading the next paragrtaph.


Tonight, I brought home a Singer model 221 sewing machine.
In its original case, with the original instrucion manual.


The case looks like someone worked it over wih a ball bat,
but the machine is MINT!

Mint mint MINT!


The only way this machine could be more MINT would be if it
dissolved under your tongue and made your breath "Winter fresh"

The 'drive band' connecting the motor to the machine has better
'skin tone' than the flesh on my face...
And I paid Seven Dollars and Fifty cents for it at 8:02 yesterday evening.

Life is good.

[Vinca]

1. I had a similar find last year and it was almost my best find of the year.

It was a mint condition old Viking from the mid-1960's with the case for $18.00. It was from the tail end of an estate that had been put up for sale at the local auction house. I couldn't find some of the attachments and happened by the auction house where they were selling the lady's other sewing machines and found my parts. With the consent of the family, the auctioneer gave them to me. Since the machine had been sitting in a closet for decades, I took it for a cleaning and lubricating and it's far and away the best machine I've ever owned. It was funny, too, that my previous sewing machine that died was a newer Viking and the $18 Viking is a much better machine.

[yy4me]

2. I want your job. No question. You don't indicate where you live!

Got a new store near here that is a thrift operation. Wish I could find a job doing what you are doing.

Is that sewing machine green? If it is, it is a workhorse from about 1960. I was given one by my grandparents at my HS graduation. At the time I thought it was a strange present. I have been grateful since then to have received it and I still use it. No repairs, nothing to do to it except a little oil now and then.

[InvisibleTouch]

3. Sounds like my grandmother's sewing machine.

She has an old green sewing machine, and though she has bought herself newer and more modern ones over the years, she always goes back to that old basic model. She was quite the seamstress in her day, made clothes for the whole family, for my dolls and stuffed animals, bedding and slipcovers, Halloween costumes, toys, you name it.

My own sewing machine sits in the closet gathering dust, for such a day as I think I'll finally have time to use it.

[Richard Steele]

4. No, it's black with gold pinstriping.

If the copyright dates in the manual are any guide,
it was made in the early 1940's.

There's a website that will let me date it precisely
according to the serial number, but it was getting late
when I found the link and I didn't want to dig the machine
out again last night.



This Singer machine was my BEST find of the day, but it wasn't my only find...
sitting alone on a shelf was one of the 1/2 size white glass mixing- bowls
made for my 1954 Sunbeam 'Rocketship' mixer, for $1.99.

So I now have a COMPLETE set of glassware accessories for that mixer.

Yesterday was a very good day, Itellyawhut!

[eleny]

5. That's probably the model I learned to sew on

Mom had one for decades until she got the new and improved green one someone mentioned.

My oh my and man oh man! I'm happy for you and especially for the machine. It's found a great home. Nothing better than that!

The nice thing about this machine is that I always felt I had control. If I wanted to sew fast it just went brrrrrrt, smooth. But if I needed to poke along near a corner or easing in a shoulder sleeve area I could inch along with confidence. And there's not a darned thing wrong with having to turn the work to tack down a stitch.

This isn't just a machine, it's a relationship.

[Richard Steele]

6. Y'know, upon closer inspection, it's very similar to the machines that I first learned to sew with.

I graduated HS at age 16 and got my first job
at the local boot factory.
The machines there were huge 40lb Singers
that had been manufactured before WW1.

Those things just never wear out. Internal parts
may need to be replaced once or twice a generation,
but the machines themselves were built to last 500 years.

This thing is like a 1/3 scale version of those shoe machines.
When I open the covers and look inside, it's deja vu all over again!

(I taught myself to adjust/repair my own machines back then,
because the factory mechanic had a bit of a drinking problem,
and opening up the machine and fiddling about
with the 'trial and error' approach generally solved most problems
FASTER than actually summoning him and waiting for him to show up.)