Free to a good home

Just for interest I have a friend that collects old sewing machines and repairs them no matter how old - he ships them around the world and has a family business based at home - this machine is a Singer and originally made in Coventry - our football team has a corner called Singers corner which has nothing to do with how bad their singing is but in memory of the team that was originally called Singers established by the company many years ago

Note : values can be quite considerable
 
My mother was a tailoress. Today, they’d call her a tailor, like Julia Robert’s is an actor. She loved cast alloy bodied Elna sewing machines and would buy them up, left right and centre. To the point that her shop had a back room full of Elna machines.

Her sewing machine mechanic probably retired on her machine refurbishment payments.

Once they, Elna, went to plastic bodies, she didn’t like them. And would only buy the older versions, because they were “work horses”.

That said, she had a bevy of round bodied Singers, from small to heavy duty industrial jobs. I clearly remember her saying that Singer lost the plot when they went to square bodied machines.

I have the clearest of memories of me, about 6yo sitting next to her while she worked, running a pin into the hand crank wheels as they spun on whichever machine she was using, and enjoying the “pa Ching” noise it made. And the smell of hot sewing machine oil.

She employed about 6 women, all making bespoke women’s formal clotting, wedding dresses by the 100’s.

Hmmm
 
My son had one, but (maybe) a prfessional model, it had its own table with cast iron sides, and the machine rotated 180 degrees to be stored under the table top when not in use, it was treadle powered, it was left behind in the house he bought, it got polished up and test run, but failed to sell, seemingly of no value, it was eventually given to a small girl who was showing lots of ibnterest in making her own clothes and costumes, so that ended well, the baby grand piano that was in the house, now that was a different thing altogether, I think it was Bechstein, made an eye watering figure!
CLEM
 
Singers had a mega factory in Clyde Bank where my Mrs was born. Over 15000 (thousand) worked there. They had their own train station. There’s a singers museum…….. one for your trip Mr M? 😉
 
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