I know it’s a Japanese knock off but it’s a handsome machine, it stitches nice, and I get along with it. I’m now hopeful that a few of my friends here at home will be able to help me get a takeup lever after I posted a rant about it, which would be so great, but I wont know until the end of the week. I got some links for vintage machine info to check out but It’s very hard to find parts or info when you have no year, brand or model number to use to look for them.