It does has ear protectors that rotate out and up (picture big headphone ears, but on stalks). It will surprise nobody who ever dealt with the plastic hinges on Viking/Husq accessory cass or plastic aspects of some of the older hard covers that the plastic pins on the earpieces don't work really well and that it has both a plastic face shield and a protective metal grid -- which were not super well thought out as far as working together.

I was ready for Viking horns too.
I once asked a Husqvarna dealer for bar oil and a bobbin case.

looking at a vs Singer

Leonf, before I saw the pictures I thought you meant a VSP model, such as the Singer 9960, which had several Viking birthmarks (the seam jumper thingie, the adapter for a couple of distinctly Viking feet.

The other notorious Viking plastic were the prongs on the Colormatic stitch things. And the hard plastic covers which could and would crack if someone put it on backward.

Husqvarna converted its 400 year old industrial area to a theme park after the buyout. With gnomes! One of these summers, I want to visit.

Anybody who says the chain saw/ lawn mower company is different from the sewing machine co.. should remember that hasn't always been true -- same logo on helmet as sewing machines before maybe 2000?

And don't forget Husky motorcycles a while back. .And military arms waaaaay back.

Flintlocks were one of its first products, late 17th century. Much more recently, Viking ranges (stoves) were a luxury thing in the UK, and some Viking food mixers -- big, like Hobarts -- made it to the U.S.

About 10 years ago, when Husqvarna probably wasn't making anything but was forming lots of corporate partnerships, I discovered a Powerpoint file online of the company's history...it would have taken more than three hours to watch. Truly death by presentation.

I wanted to correct myself per the Imperial, which is actually a 10, not a 15 (I always get that wrong, and it's not set up right now so I don't see it that often. It's also greenish, not bluish.)

And maybe in a gut reaction to purchasing the National Viking, I did almost the exact same thing last night, but with a 19E, offering 75 instead of 100, which was accepted. Postage for it is 25, so the real Viking ended up costing less than the fake because its postage was 50.

I can stop any time I want to....