My next door neighbor brought me a sewing machine this morning. She'd been at a church give-away, and as they had cleaned up and were leaving, some guy (we assume a fellow give-away-er) approached Sallie and asked did she know anyone who'd be interested in an old sewing machine. Knowing me, she said yes.
It's a Kenmore Model 71, in a nice (but dirty) case, and with the manual, ALL the original attachments and a knee bar. It runs, but was dry as a bone, and had the obligatory ball of fluff in the bobbin case/feed dogs. (Honestly, does *no one* ever clean out their machines??) It sounds funny to me-high pitched, almost, and loud. My teenage son said, "It sounds like a Japanese street racer, Mom, all speed and no @ss." It does, kinda. It also sounds like there's something rubbing and/or clunking somewhere that I can't get to. I found a video of one on youtube (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbT_pjliOaw), and that one sounds odd to me too, so maybe it's me, not the machine.
According to Ismacs, the 71 was designed as competition for Singer's 301. Like that, this one is aluminum, and therefore light-17 lbs. It was built by White, and is a rotary. The attachments are top-clamping; I've never seen that on a 'modern' electrified machine. It's also got the weirdest bobbin I've seen yet-the finger of the bobbin has the tension spring on it, and so gets threaded. It threads weirdly too-across the front, and the take-up lever faces the back. (Can you tell I've never seen anything like this one before?
) I have questions about the timing. It sews pretty well, but the edges of every single bobbin are all chewed up, some fairly severely.
One of the things in the case was the Certificate of Guarantee. It was delivered to a neighbor of mine on 9/23/55. (Ismacs says they were selling for $135 in '56-that's $1070 in today's dollars! 0.o) I still haven't decided whether or not I'm going to keep it, but it's pretty cool that it came from a neighbor of mine. They're long gone, but Ms Etta, who's been here since the neighborhood was built (it's all GI tract housing) remembers them, and said Mrs Vaughn was "a fine seamstress, and always well turned out".
I'd love to know if anyone out there has this one!