A Little Featherweight Love

So, it's been a while.  Had a couple of weeks worth of Featherweight Frenzy and now things have settled back down.

 Here's the deal:  I just can't pass up one of these for sale at any affordable price.   I have my own Featherweight that I use and honest-to-goodness that is enough for me.  But I see these little machines offered for sale here and there at less than market value and I just gotta take them home with me.   They never stay long - I don't hoard them, I find them new homes.  In the meantime I enjoy playing with them and making their acquaintance.

The two who passed through recently couldn't be more different.

Here you have a B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L 1952 Singer 221 in nearly pristine condition.

I love the Celtic knot decals, and all the visible screws are black, something I haven't seen before, and I think it looks so elegant. She sews as well as she looks.  

So this machine stayed with me a few days and quickly found a new home via eBay.  (I hear that her new owner is very pleased!)

Then on the other hand was the machine I introduced in a recent post.  A 1937 in dreadful condition:

That is a picture of it partially disassembled.  I proceeded to remove every bit and piece of this machine and sold it all off on eBay.  Just like with a recent 15-91 that I parted out, these parts sold like hotcakes!  It is always a little sad to reduce a machine to an organ donor, but I consider that other machines can go on to give more years of service because they got original replacement parts that they needed.  This machine was neglected, worn, dirty and greasy.  I had to struggle just to get her running (as shown in previous post.)  

But she had some beautiful parts such as the early type scrolled face plate

I spent a brief moment considering dressing up my own 1956 Featherweight with this beautiful plate, but then I just couldn't do it. With its more modern prism type decals, it looked as ridiculous as a woman in a dress like THIS wearing a hat like THIS

So the face plate was sold (that alone brought more than I paid for the entire machine!) along with every single part including the stripped down machine head itself. Without giving exact amounts, let me just say that the total of all the parts far exceeded what the machine by itself would have sold for. 

Just to top off my Featherweight Frenzy, I whipped up a new case cover.  (And BTW, matching chevron at the seams is not for sissies.)

Vintage Images courtesy of FreeVintageImages.com