Mickey2

I'm sure you already know their differences, but from a vintage point of view, many value an all metal constuction highly, at least when it comes to gears and internal parts. I guess Fashion Mate 237 would top category 2 and 4, for some users maybe a third category too. It's a simple straight - zigzag machine, as far as I know hardly anything should go wrong with it, wear out easily or turn brittle with age. Worth spending some time and effort on fixing up.

I haven't had a Touch & Sew my self, but I would love to try out the fancy bobbin features. It's a model with a few plastic parts prone to need replacement. From a practical point of view the 758 is neither as dependable nor as durable as the 237, but it takes cams and are capable of a lot of stitches. If I'm correct it takes double cams, which means patterns with reverse stitching and over lock; in other words needle and feed dogs can move indepent of each other; quite fancy features. Replacement gears are available and it should be worth spending a bit of time and money on fixing it up. I know the Touch & Sew models were nick named Touch and Swear, maybe owners can give feed back on them. Some featuers might be cumbersome to use, or it might be down to how well the user became accustomed to them. It should have at least as many stitch patterns to chose from as the Athena 2000 model, even more. It means topping category 1. Does both Touch & Sew and Athena 2000 have the fancy bobbin functions?

For a collector any model can be interesting, it all depends upon view, interest and purpose. From a more practical point of view, the Singer Athena 2000 is the least one worth spending time and money on fixing up. When the circuit board fails I doubt it can be replaced or repaired. To what degree can a 40 year old circiut board be trusted?