DH has been asking a lot of questions, and then started dropping a lot of hints, and I think last night he couldn't stand the suspense anymore and gave me an early gift...a Rocketeer! It's a 500A and I only had about 20 minutes to play with it last night but it sews beautifully! Cosmetically it's nearly perfect, just two very small boo-boos on the body paint. Doors and hinges are perfect.
I tried to pry out of him what he paid for it but he wouldn't say anything other than he got "a good deal". He won't tell me where he found it either, but I'm pretty sure it was a local find. I think he found a secret vintage sewing machine cache somewhere around here that he doesn't want me to know about, LOL! I can tell it's been recently oiled so *somebody* has taken care of it.
I only got the machine and the power cord/pedal combo - no manual, no feet other than the basic one that's on it, no cams. The hunt is on! I did find the manual online but I'll be keeping my eyes open for a paper one too.
I noticed when I threaded it that there seems to be a part missing; a little arm that rides along on the thread. I looked it up and it's some sort of thread tension piece, but the blog I found was talking about how it doesn't work and Singer released an alternate threading path to bypass it. I'm thinking maybe someone deliberately modified the machine to take that arm out so the normal threading path could be used without that little arm interfering. Interesting...and the stitches look great so it's apparently not at all necessary, just like the blog said.
It's so PRETTY! I'm so happy with it.
And I have NO idea where I'm going to put it! LOL