Is this vintage or not?
 

My DH found a woman selling stuff on the side of the road, and he spotted this baby. She is a hand crank Singer with Egyptian decals and is very clean. However, the bobbin case is mossing and so is the bottom of the wooden case. Made in China, she has a number 560944. I called Singer, and the girl thought she is a 15-NL and that she was made during the period 1980 -1995. DH paid $5.00.

Now i am wondering if any one can help me find out exactly what this baby is, and if an instruction manual and parts can be found.

Even if we can't get her going again, she sure is pretty and has not one single scratch. 'Cleopatra' will sit on a shelf in my sewing room for all to see.

Thanks for all you great folks do on this board!

Kathy from Casa Grande AZ

It's a modern nostalgia Singer 15. If you scroll down the page on this link it will give you more info about it. http://www.singersewinginfo.co.uk/15/ Very pretty!

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*** Cleo is a real beauty & a real bargain at $5.
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The girl on the phone was right. It's the reproduction model 15 that Singer authorized. It's a real Singer, just not an original model 15. Usually when I see them for sale they're listed as "antique" which they're not and the seller usually wants a completely ridiculous amount of money. The feed dog knob on the bed is a give-away. The real model 15s never had one and real 15s with perfect sphinx decals aren't common.
You did well at $5.00 IMO
Congrats on your new machine.
Rodney

Not a clone, but a real Singer made in India. On a thread here somewhere the info is the "NL" machines were made in India, and the "CL" machines made in China.

Slide plates, needle pegs, bobbins and what not are all available at Sew-Classics and other places. The case can be cleaned and glued back together if needed. It's Chinese, but can be refinished if you want.

Oil, Tri-Flow will get it going again.

Nice machine. For the price you sure did not go wrong.

Joe

I know very little about vintage machines, but I think your husband got a real steal on this one.

I'll give you $10 for it????? great find!

Rodney, there are some other clues as well. Decals- they used some decals on repro models that weren't on the original models. Tension assembly- plastic. Nuff said. Electrical terminal- different than the old ones, again, plastic. Treadles- pressboard cabinets and poorly cast leg irons. The last one I saw in the wild was in the west Olympia Goodwill marked as an antique for $175. Nothing I tried to tell them would convince them that it wasn't. It sat there for a quite a while. Have you seen the ones that have been popping up on CL lately in Seattle? There's been two treadles and a hand crank listed as antiques. The repros aren't hard to spot even in a crappy picture.

Cari

I don't know anything about it, but it sure has nice decals......good luck

Cari I don't know if I saw those ones or not. If I did they didn't make an impression. I usually check out CList once a day or so and being pretty much right in the middle look in the Portland ads too. I don't like the repros, at best I think of them as clones and would prefer a real model 15 over both(my Rodney machine being an exception), though if I was a serious collector I would probably get one to fill out a Singer collection (maybe as an example of how far Singer has fallen). I already have a German made model 15 waiting to be restored and really don't have the resources for a lot of duplicates. I'm starting to force myself to be more selective and only go after the machines I really want. Don't worry though, it's a fairly long list. I don't have the room to display a lot of machines and to me it's sort of a waste if I just stick them somewhere and forget about them.
Rodney