Quiltingboard Forums - Sticking my toe in the waters of Vintage Sewing Machines

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Great find! Enjoy it.

Awesome machine. Thanks for posting. Great job bargaining.

Welcome to the addicting world of vintage.....I got thrown in the pond just by reading the posts on this page!! I love these old machines....they are so sexy!

Wow!! What a great deal! I just priced a Singer in a cool cabinet that has several red eyes on it.....totally restored and working for $699!!!!! Then there was another Singer in a cabinet for $299!!! And the third one was $499 - not a Singer.... All were just totally maintained!!! Huge difference on price!! Have fun! I don't have room but if I did I would have to have one!

Really nice!!! There is nothing like vintage machines!!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by jljack (Post 5289364)

Hi Barb...thanks for putting up pics of your machine. I don't think it's a Davis badge. Davis's have the tension pieces in different locations, and the needle plate is almost always square instead of round or oval. I would bet a National, but I could be just shooting in the dark!! LOL

I'll second that. Wonder how they got the name "Minnehaha", is a play off of Sears "Minnesota"? Noticed the center brace with Minnehaha was installed backwards at some point in time. Nice machine.

Jon

From Wiki:

Minnehaha is a fictional Native American woman documented in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1855 epic poem The Song of Hiawatha. She is the lover of the titular protagonist Hiawatha. The name is often incorrectly said to mean "laughing water", though in reality it translates to "waterfall" or "rapid water" in Dakota.[SUP][1][/SUP] She is the subject of the poem, and later song, cantata, and painting, The Death of Minnehaha.

:)

It's also the name of a town here in Minnesota. There's also Minnehaha park, Minnehaha Falls, Minnehaha Ave...etc. (Lots of American Indian influence in the town names around here...I live in Mahtomedi) I thought maybe it was a branded machine with a local connection...maybe Montgomery Wards answer to Sears. I really can't find a definitive answer to who made the machine, where, when. If the last patent date listed is 1904, can we determine she was made on or around that date?

Quote:

Originally Posted by quiltingweb (Post 5291969)

I also bought a Singer at the estate sale. A Singer Stylist 457. ..but it has a squeak. I wanted to oil anything that was metal against metal before I did too much.

I was cleaning and oiling a Singer 185j, last week, and when I was done oiling everything that looked like it moved I plugged it in and started running it. It sounded like an animal was dying in there, the squeal was so loud. I finally narrowed down where the noise was coming from, added a couple of drops of oil and after that....no more squeal. You just have to put your ear near the machine to see if you can figure out the general area of where the squeak is coming from. Good luck on it.

I have a Stylist from 1975 that I used for many, many years. I had such nostalgic feelings for it that I couldn't bear to get rid of it. I still have it and I also started collection vintage machines almost 3 yrs ago. It won't be long before you find yourself with another beauty...heh heh heh....we are all enablers on here BTW!! :D

Oh, I've been listening. I can't find it, but I'll keep looking...er...listening. One good thing, working on the old machines has made me less nervous about looking inside and figuring out how they work. My bobbin winder on my main machine stopped working today...opened it up, looked inside and figured it out. FUN!