Originally Posted by
Cari-in-Oly
A desirable machine is in the eyes of the beholder. We all here have ones we love and ones we don't.
Cari's 100% right: Do you mean "do I love this?" or do you mean popular, strong collector market, high price etc?
My 96K41 is very desirable in my eyes, but I picked it up for $50 after it was relisted on eBay for several months (because nobody would pay that much for an industrial clothing machine!). In the end I had a (fairly low, but more than I paid) offer for my 96K49 by someone who really needed it so I sold it and bought the poor unloved K41.
If you mean what would be a good investment, the most valuable domestics are the 222K. However they're not really increasing in value, just keeping up with the cost of living. They're also really cute, light and do a good stitch.
Older machines like my VS2 are beautiful (see avatar) hold their value and are extremely practical. Do you want decor? Nobody so far has ever said they don't like the way it looks.
If you want an 'investment', I think you're looking in the wrong place. If you truly mean desirable, then only you can answer that, because it's completely subjective. If you want a recommendation for what machine to buy, we'll help you with that depending on what you want to do.
One last thing is that if you think you love a machine, sit down and stitch with it before buying it. I hated my first 201 and avoided using it just on the look (it was that 1950s poo brown) but when I sewed with it everything changed: It instantly became my favourite.