Do you swap cases, boxes, bentwoods?
 

If you collect, you probably don't keep everything in tables. I know that all things being equal, given the choice, I prefer a case with a cover to a tabled machine.

Say you have 3-4 Singer 201's. You plan to keep one. One is in a Bentwood case, one in a covered box case, ones in a treadle cabinet, ones just a head. The head is the best of the four and the one you'd like to keep. What do you do?

If you prefer a case to a table, I wouldn't hesitate to place the nicest of the 201's in your collection in the case. Tables are fairly plentiful, at least in my neck of the woods. You could always place it back in a table should you find one that you really like. JMHO...

I swap them around often. I've bought machines just to get a cabinet or case I wanted. I've bought some of my best machines off eBay - and only bought the head.

I swap cases out all the time. I recently purchased a General Brand (15 clone) machine strictly for the motor and the case. Plan to use the case in a machine that I like better than the General.

Which do you think better, the bentwood cases or the covered boxes?

At some point to future collectors it might matter if the case or cabinet is original to the machine, or at least correct for it's age but that time is a ways off for "modern" machines like 201s. It might make a difference for truly old machines from before 1900 but right now our age of machines are being converted into other things and their value is either decorative or in the use of them.
Do what you like best. It won't affect the value any time soon.
Rodney

Rodney, I guess I would agree with that. A machine from the 60's is fine to me regardless of what I place it in, but a truly old machine like Steve collects-he is probably much more concerned with being authentic to the period.

Correctamundo.... If I can I try to keep original sets together. The VERY early Wheeler & Wilson #8 that I got last month, had a treadle and I am about to complete the deal to get that and have it shipped to me so that I can keep them together.

With that being said, I also have no issue making a new base for a machine without one, or buying a base to put it in.

I'll agree I'm must less likely to want to swap out a truly old machine, but I don't consider a 201 to be in that group. In fact, with most of the Singer stuff after 1900, it's so common that I don't worry about it much at all.

I do like to keep things period appropriate. I don't care for putting an electric machine into a treadle base, but I've seen that done many times.

And then there is the question of reconditioned machines. There is also historical value there - seeing a treadle machine that was converted to electric and put into a covered case during WW2.


So Steve, having wrote what you did, does that mean you'd have no interest in the treadle cabinet my Singer 12 came in - unless the machine came with it?

Sometimes you get a wonderful base with a less than wonderful machine, and vice versa. I have several really nice machines in really nice cabinets (with my Singers) but very few of them came together.

I've been thinking a lot about that...