Oh another interesting fact taken from ISMACS International, "In 1857 Edward Clark (Singer's partner) came up with another good idea for increasing sales. He announced a 'liberal plan of exchanging Singer's new and latest improved sewing machines for old or unimproved sewing machines of every kind.'
Meaning he started an exchange program to get people to buy Singer. They would bring in their old machines for part of the cost of a new Singer. When the old machines were traded in to Singer they were "immediately broken up and destroyed." So "from the collector's point of view the offer led to the destruction of most of the early competition and robbed us of many desirable, but now unrepresented, machines."
Wow, this makes it even more fun to find one of those 1800's machines!
Nancy