The post you linked to has been removed. The one downside with Craigslist is that a fairly high percentage of the "deals" on their site are stolen goods. I have a friend who's a reporter & did a story about it (wish I could find the link). So in addition to everything else I look into when purchasing something from Craigslist, I also type the serial number into Google along with the make & model to see if anything comes up with it being reported stolen. Since we started doing that, our church group has found 5 items that were stolen that we were able to report to the police and get returned to their rightful owners. :)

Hope you find another good deal. I love vintage Singers!

There's a fair amount of stolen merchandise on CL, Ebay, most all popular sales sites. I see obvious stolen items on Facebook almost every day.

Cari

I just sold my mocha 301A on CL for $175......had the walking foot, free motion foot for slant needles, a ruffler, and bias tape foot, bobbins, needles, and instruction book. Just didn't need 4 machines anymore.

i don't go to any of those sites anymore...never thought about things being stolen items-wow. How do you know that something is obviously stolen?

Darn, didn't get to see the color....I do a lot on Craigslist, but never thought about things being stolen.

Never thought to think of sewing machines being stolen and sold on eBay or CL!! Wow

When the same person is always posting an ad that reads like this no matter what they're selling-
"Three brand new pairs of XXX shoes, never been worn. Paid $100 each. Too small for my son and can't return them. $50 a pair."
It's not a huge jump to think they're stolen when the same person posts this type of ad all the time.
I don't know that I've ever seen a stolen sewing machine for sale, but I don't personally know anyone who's had one stolen either.
When we buy anything off of FB or CL, we keep a screen shot of the ad and all communication between us and the seller just in case the item happens to be stolen. It's the only way to protect ourselves. So far we've not had any problems.

Cari

I've seen posts from people saying they bought a FW that has had the serial number filed off and the assumption was that at some point it was stolen. How many times can something be bought and sold before it's no longer "hot"?? I think I would feel funny buying a machine if I knew its serial number had been mutilated. Was it stolen back in the 40's, or was it stolen 40 minutes ago?

I guess that explains why we sometimes come across machines where someone has scratched their SSN into the paint. A lot of these vintage machines went for the equivalent of thousands of dollars when new - makes sense they'd have been something worth stealing.