I have an old Singer 319 series sewing machine. It was in AWESOME shape, before I had water damage in the basement and it ruined a lot of my stuff (including this poor baby, and my grandmother's photo albums!)
I submitted a claim to the landlord for his insurance and long story short, I'm suing him for neglect and we're waiting on a court date.
The thing is, I just went through my documents, and the serial number that I have written down doesn't make sense, and I can't find it anywhere on the machine, so I have no idea where I got that number to begin with!

I asked on another thread, but the person told me to check in front of the needle, kind of on the edge, and I still can't find a serial number. The only serial is on the machine motor. Of course there is a serial number on each of the little metal parts, stamped on the bottom of the rods underneath, on the machine...lol, everywhere but where it's supposed to be, and none of those serial numbers match what mine is supposed to look like.
Does anyone have a clue what I'm talking about?
I feel like I'm having a total blonde moment, and in about 15 minutes I'm going to have a 'duh' moment. This is really driving me crazy, lol!
I can post pictures if it will help you out, but I'm not sure I'm allowed to post pics in the Main section.

I did a search for 319, and JJs has one. You could pm her?

Look on the edge of the base all around, its usually by the pillar but depending on the year that can always change. It should start off with 2 letters then the number something like this: AL345789. It could have 6 digits or 7 depending an when it was allotted for the series.

Hope this helps,

Billy

I finally managed to get through to the folks at Singer, and the lady on the phone was very helpful. Turns out, my serial number was under the machine, on the flat part of the edge, but the paint had bubbled up so much that I had to scrape off some of the rust (white powdery crap) and take some nail polish remover to get the rest off with the little bit of paint that was left. The number was not on a plate, but engraved right into the bottom.
Officially, my machine was born on November 6, 1956, in Scotland. Website says Clydebank, lady on the phone said Kilbowie (or something like that)
Aparantly there were not many of these machines made, and they're even less common in black. I still have no idea how to figure out a value, in it's current condition or before the damage. It was in great shape, with no wear to the gold paint or black paint or anything... :(

If I were you I would keep the machine and send it to a good shop and have them go through it and get it runnning like new again and send Landlord the bill.

I was figuring that it was in the middle 50's because the one I bought and gave away was a 1956 model.

Billy

Well, I was supposed to get rid of it two years ago when the flooding happened. The landlord's insurance was supposed to decide whether they wanted to repair or replace it, but since the dummy never submitted my claim, now he's responsible for replacing all the items. The rental board told me to get rid of everything that was ruined and that the courts would make him replace it all. It's taken nearly two years since I opened the file against them, but I just got my court date today.

Everything else went, but I really can't bring myself to throw the poor machine out.

Did you happen to take a pic of the machine before it was ruined? That would be positive proof of what it actually looked like in it's original state.