I’m not much for PMs, so I’ll answer the questions that I got in a PM about my purchase, so maybe I won’t get more PMs asking the same thing.
The collector that I got the machines from was formerly an Antique Tractor Collector that switched to sewing machines when the tractor parts and handling the tractors got too heavy for him. His favorite thing was to get the sewing machines working, and once he sewed a stitch line with them, he moved on to the next one. He wasn’t much into cosmetics. Most of the machines were “beaters” that didn’t look too good, and there were several parts machines that he’d robbed parts off of to get another one sewing.
I got the lot at a really good price, and I won’t state how much. It was a Craig’s List Ad that I responded to, and I paid the asking price in the Ad. Then, I used the IRS flat rate for vehicle mileage to calculate the transportation cost (7 roundtrips), and added in the cost of the storage units (2 months for one and 8 months for the second), to come up with my total cost. I reached the break-even point in two years to the month, with about 3/4 of them still on-hand.
No, I haven’t checked them all out, only the ones that I wanted for my own collection. I kept 20 of them, and over the past 2 1/2 years, I’ve found new homes for more of them and pulled parts off to ship to needy machines around the country. I probably still have about half of them, mostly common parts machines, since the nice ones and unusual ones went first.
It has been a lot of work, but for a Vintage Sewing Machine Enthusiast, it has been about as exciting as it gets! And I’ve met a lot of really nice folks that also like old sewing machines because of it.
CD in Oklahoma