Originally Posted by
SteveH
Not sure if it is a 66 or a 99. 99 is the 3/4 version. I would guess a 99.
Steve - two ways I can tell a 99 from a 66 if scale isn't evident - 1. Flat face plate instead of contoured, 2. The motor sticks further into the throat. The 66 is -almost- even with the pillar. The 99 motor sticks a fair bit into the throat.
Originally Posted by
grannysewer
Thanks Steve, it does appear to be a 99. Just isn't marked. I looked it up on google and found out what I needed.
Only the "newer" 99s will be marked. My previous understanding had been that Singer started doing that somewhere in the mid-50s (i.e the 401As etc were all marked, but older 99s / 15s / 221s for instance ) would remain unbadged, but newer ones would be badged. It's one of my instant markers for an approximate date on a machine. I had one 301 that had a NA serial number which indicates that the serial was allocated in 1951. According to this link though, it couldn't have been older than 1953, because there was an "A" behind the model number.
http://www.singer301.com/dating/default.html and is probably a 1955 model. It does look like Singer might have started the number plate thing in 1951 though, but only on the slants at the time?