LOL, Thanks. No I am a "dedicated hobbyist", this guy is a full time professional.
So a little history about these machines (as I recall the conversation).
The Franklin company started making these in 1867 and got sued immediately by multiple makers for patent infringement. Franklin lost. So production and shipping of this machine was stopped. In late 1868 they introduced a new "diamond" model that had all of the necessary patent declarations to be legal. it was not a hit anyway and they closed in 1869ish
This is one of the early ones that has NO patent info anywhere on it.
This machine is going to the same museum that my MOP Grover and Baker went to. They have a brick and mortar museum and the proper environment to preserve this exceptionally rare machine. Less than two dozen known to exist)
But if it makes folks feel better, it funded the acquisition of these two....
My #1 most wanted machine (actually a clone of the machine I was hunting for (Singer 46k1)) This specific machine was made in the late 1800's by/for James Moffat of Yeovil England. (a center of Glovemaking "for centuries") This machine was designed to sew ladies gloves
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and one of the ultimate prizes for a collector, a Singer Letter A treadle. The Letter A was the 3rd model of sewing machine made by Singer and his first truly successful sewing machine made.
I just love this photo at ISMACS of a woman in 1911 with her Letter A that she bought in 1860-
http://ismacs.net/singer_sewing_mach..._letter_a.html
This ones serial number is 137632 The ISMACS database and the Singer online database do not go this far back.... It was made in 1865
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