5 featherweights, oodles of others
 

i know i'm not the first person in the world to discover this! i have heard so many people say they are looking for a featherweight, or a 301, or other vintage machines. shopgoodwill.com has a bunch of machines in the craft and hobby section. they are in auction format and they tell you the closing date and time. i bought a featherweight, well under $200, and there are others going for less, and more. if you are seriously wanting to get a new old machine, this is a great resource and supplier! my only affiliation with them is my donating and buying. good luck! hope you find your dream machine!!:thumbup:

I've noticed a lot of machines there also and have bought a few but I find postage too expensive. I've paid about $50 per machine. I've also noticed their handling fee is creeping upward. One machine had a $15 handling fee. I passed on this one. Do you know of any other online auction sites?

this is the only one i've stumbled on so far. i've bought books from b&n , the used section, and they often list titles that are at goodwill. the book might be $1.99 and postage $2.99. but i've still saved. because i've had such good luck with books and tapes/cd's, i started looking at other things they are selling, hence, the fw's. should get mine monday or tuesday

handmade quilt, machine stitched 12.50. viking vintage, green 15? in the for the home section. other machines as well. and some household linen lots. it's a bit of a guessing game, and sometimes a gamble, but they tell you as much as possible about the item without misrepresenting it. lots of longaberger baskets, low prices too.

Packing up a machine to ship safely takes about an hour, Goodwill is a business with overhead like any other.

That said :) carol, how were yours packed? I followed many clone 15's there but without feedback I was afraid of them not being packed securely. And finally found my dream machine locally, yipee!

I felt they were packed extremely well with bubble wrap around the machine inside the case as well as tons of bubble around the machine itself. Packing peanuts finished out the boxes. On second thought, maybe shipping was reasonable.

I have had 3 of 5 arrive broken, one after I called and personally talked to the person who did the wrapping for shipping. One had a chair cushion/pillow on one side, and a wad of old clothes on the other.

since the site covers the nation's goodwill stores, they could be from a place that packs well, or from a store that doesn't. i'm hoping my featherweight isn't very breakable! fingers and eyes crossed!

some stores pack better than others. I've had pretty decent results from the Tacoma WA store, and the Colorado Springs store. They do charge quite a bit but I've had all mine arrive pretty well packed. Nothing broken so far so I can't complain. I've bought maybe 10 or so sewing machines, notions, books, clothing, and longaberger baskets.