Hoarder

Helping a neighbor clean our his mother's sewing room! Quilt guild will be receiving 15 bins for charity quilts. This machine looks in working order, but has a place for "cams" for the decorative stitches. Never did find the cams. Does this machine have any value as is?

sharon b

I have one and many swear by them - are they worth as much as a featherweight, probably not- but they are work horses , easy to maintain . Mine does not have the cams- is it in a case ?

Charlee

Vintage for sure! Nice machines, and like Miz Sharon said, workhorses! Value is subjective. It's worth more if it has cams and attachments...doesn't sound like this one does.

miriam

The 401 should have about 5 cams or disks with it. Great machine. There is a lot of information on QB about them. Just type Singer 401 up at the top left of this page then push search. If search gets too overwhelmed you can go to advanced search and look at just the post titles. There should be plenty of good information.

crafty pat

I bought mine new in 1958, it came with 5 cam's. You can do a lot of pretty stitches without the cam's. It sews thick fabrics like a dream. I use mine a lot more than my new one. I would never let mine get away from me.

Candace

You really don't "need" cams with a 401. A good amount of stitches have built in cams. They are great machines.

jeaninmaine

You can find the cams on ebay and the manual is available free online. The 401 is a terrific machine.

glorcour

My first machine was a 411 (the one with the chain stitch) bought in 1963. It is a workhorse and is now in the hands of my nonsewer daughter, But when I am there I use it and she still runs like before. It never ever needed service - NOT ONCE EVER!

miriam

Did you manage to make your Singer 411 go on a treadle? They were made to do electric or treadle. Check the owner's manual.

DonnaQuilts

Those are good machines. Don't let the nay sayers slow you down. Yes, it does have value. Cams are sold on Ebay, but beware of less than experienced sellers. Be sure they gurantee they will fit your machine. Don't hesitate to ask questions. You probably won't need them, but in case you do, go for it. A good cleaning is recommended. That is part of our obligation to our faithful sewing machines. We're all they have. You will havemany happy hours. By the way, I have a couple of machines that are worth less than the going rate for cleaning now. Unfortunate buy true for a lot of older machines 50 and newer. We are all waiting for the market to come back, but it probably won't. In the meantime we can just sew, sew, sew.