New to this
 

My 12yr old daughter has always had an interest in sewing and her secondary school is the only one in the area that still teaches textiles. So over Christmas to stop her from becoming too reliant on her new technology Santa bought her I arranged for a loan of granny's 185k handcrank.

Well she had fun run running stitches through odd bit of material so that got me thinking ad over the holidays rescued this from a local charity shop.
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I started to fiddle around and try to find out what make it was and have got as far as it being about 1900 ish.

So I needed to get her a working machine, so off to e-bay I went. To cut a long story short I end up with a 1937 Singer 99k in a carry case

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Result being one happy daughter but also during this process we also saw a Singer 66 on a treadle base, so I went to view it, it certainly needs TLC and when I bought it didn't turn.

This is what I came home with.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]455373[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]455374[/ATTACH]

So I spent £30 on the 99k and £35 on the 66. The wife and I have had a fantastic time slowly pulling apart the 66 and cleaning bits and thanks to this site http://www.tfsr.org/publications/tec...achine_manual/ I have been able to get her moving again. I just need to wait for the backclamp foot to arrive from the USA from and e-bay seller and I should be on to the next step of making it stitch again.

those are nice machines, specially the Singer 12 with a hand crank too. you did well. great prices also. if you don't mind, how much did you get the singer 12/13 hand crank for ?

Wow, those are beautiful machines. Welcome to the board from New York. Hope your daughter enjoys her developing talent and the quiltingboard. Would love to see what she has created.

It's a Singer 12 as previously mentioned, and there should be two serial numbers at the base, near the hand crank. The shorter one (I think) is the one listed at http://www.ismacs.net/singer_sewing_...l-numbers.html and this will give you the year of allocation of that serial number. Your machine was probably made that year. This model was made from 1867 until 1903, but most were pre-1890: The VS2 came out then, and it was a much better machine than the 12.

I laughed when you said you fiddled with it. That base is called a fiddle due to its shape (obviously).

If you were to buy one more machine, I'd suggest a 201: Brilliant machine and probably the best stitcher Singer ever made.

Welcome and you have some great machines.
Rodney

WOW! WOW! WOW! You have some great finds and congratulations on becoming a vintage sewing machine family! Fantastic story & lovely machines!

Wow!! Some great machines! Happy sewing, and welcome to the board!

It's always neat to see what is "common" in the UK that is rather rare in the US. A Lotus like that would be a real steal over here, and you have way more hand cranks too! In fact most of the older ones I've seen in the US are UK made. I don't think Singer made many of them in this country.

Just like the Lotus decal was only put on UK made machines, and the Red Eye was only put on US made machines. And back then, companies didn't' import/export like they do know.

Actually it is the longer one that is the serial number, the shorter one is believed to be an internal production nuumber