I feel like I had a 2-hour wasted trip today. I had been emailing back and forth for over a week with a lady who had advertised on CL that she had her mother's 401A for sale along with her sewing/quilting supplies. She had sent me pics and it looked good in the blonde cabinet. She told me she had sewn on it and everything was good. Got there and "finally" got around to seeing the machine. (Talkative lady) I first looked it over to check for frayed wires etc. and noticed there was no bobbin in the bobbin case. The machine was threaded. It is in a cabinet with the knee control. Cosmetically, the body looked good. I decided to see if the motor sounded good and ran well. Well, the handwheel would not start turning nor the needle bar go up or down, even with me gently starting the wheel. When I loosened the inner wheel and push the bobbin lever up, the bobbin wheel would spin and things seemed to be right. After retightening the hand wheel, I tried to turn the wheel without using the motor. Needle would not go up and down.
Now, is there some secret I'm missing? Did run quiet but I didn't want to just keep running it without the needle bar moving. She said there were "lots of attachments" but she had gotten the wrong storage box out of the storage unit. Come to find out, her mother hadn't sewn on it in 2 years but apparently she was an avid quilter. Belonged to 2 quilt groups. Oh, the "boxes of fabric/supplies" was one box with curtains and misc pieces of stuff in it. There was one small box with trim and a couple packs of buttons...nothing special. She says there's lots more in the missing box.
She was asking $250 for "entire lot". I had offered her $150 depending on my checking it out and the machine having all the attachments/cams and was in good sewing condition.
If there something I need to tell her to try or should I just let this one go?