Flamingo Canadian Vintage Sewing Machine Finder Service

 VINTAGE CANADIAN  SEWING MACHINE FINDER SERVICE

Recently, I have learned that there is a demand in the US for vintage sewing machines that were originally sold in Canada. I live in Canada,  on the left coast in the beautiful and the occasionally wacky province of British Columbia. (don't get me started....). Now, since my hobby is buying and selling vintage sewing machines, (and I need something to do when I retire from my day job), I have decided to offer a vintage sewing machine finding service.

The proposition is simple: If you are looking for a sewing machine, originally sold in Canada, you let me know. I look for it, if I find it, I buy it, pack it and ship it to you for my costs plus a finders fee to cover my time, packing, and some extra to keep me and Alice (the cat) in the life style that we are accustomed to....lol.

As usual, the Devil is in the details, and here is how it works.

First, you tell me what you are looking for. Send me a picture and a model number, specify the  color, cosmetic condition you want, good, perfect or collector grade, and if you want it in a case or table, or you will take just the head. Second, tell me how much you want to pay:( typically vintage machines here sell for $25.00 to $75.00 CDN).

Send me your zip or postal code so that I can calculate shipping costs.

With that information in hand, I will go and look for such a machine here in BC. Alternatively, you can look for yourself on Craigslist Vancouver BC CA, Kijij Vancouver or Letgo for a machine that you want. In either case, I will go, check out the machine, haggle on price, purchase, service it and pack and ship to you. If you see a table machine that you want, but don't want to pay shipping for the table, I will dispose of the table and just ship you the head, foot pedal and any accessories that come with the machine.

Costs:
If I do the hunting for the machine: my fee is $60.00CDN, Includes service, and packing
If you find the machine on Craigslist, my fee is $50.00CDN, Includes service and packing

Shipping would be via Canada Post, with tracking and insurance.  I am on the west coast of the continent, and if you are on the east coast, or the South or anywhere else far away, you can expect to pay, to $90.00 CDN (cheapest rate plus insurance and tracking) for delivery, plus any US duties, fees or taxes that are applicable. Your machine should arrive within three weeks.

If you are a Canadian customer, shipping costs will be cheaper.

Overall costs: you should expect that this will be an expensive process. I would budget about $200.00 US Dollars per machine.Probably it will be less than that, but that would be a prudent amount to set aside.

Occasionally people's circumstances change or they simply change their minds. I don't want to be stuck with a machine if that happens. So, if I find a machine that you want, I require you to PayPal me the sum of $100.00CDN to proceed, before I buy it. This is NON-REFUNDABLE, after I have purchased the machine. After purchasing the machine, I will send you a whole bunch of pictures of it and calculate shipping cost and you can decide whether or not to proceed any further. I will then invoice you for the balance, pack and ship your machine.

If you decide not to proceed, I will refund you, an amount that I think that I can sell the machine for here. This will be the "sell it quick price", and it will be very low......$20-$50CDN depending on the machine.

Occasionally, with all the best intentions, and good will on both sides, the machine does will not live up to expectations when it arrives. Sorry, no refunds.......

What's her name?

What's her name? You would be surprised how often I get asked that question by purchasers of the machines I sell.     

They are not asking the name of the machine, though they inevitably refer to them as "she", rather they are asking for the first name of the woman that I bought it from.

They want to name the machine after her. So if I buy a machine from a woman named Helen, the new owners will give it that name, and refer to it by that name forever.

Now this does not make a whole lot of sense to me. Yes, there is sentiment thing going on there , and the original owner's care and love of the machine is honored........But you see, my customers aren't buying the machine from the original owner, they are buying them from me. But apparently, I am the wrong gender to have a sewing machine named after me............sigh.......      

The Singer 99K

 If I had to choose between a model 15 and 99K, I would take the 99K, because I like the drop in bobbin feature. Way easier to take out and replace the bobbin. (almost sounds like like I actually know how to sew, doesn't it?). On top that that they are just plain pretty machines. They sew very quietly when they are in good condition, but for some reason Singer made them to be a fairly slow machine by giving them a large diameter sheave on the balance wheel. I have swapped out the balance wheel on some and they run a lot faster and they seem to sew just as well.

There is an interesting lesson to be learned from this one. How do you keep your sewing machine in great shape? Simple, break it, don't fix it and shove it in the closet for years and years. The lady that I got this one from had a problem with the tensioner, and since she had a model 15, in a table that she preferred to use, she never really used this one. She gave it to me, when I bought her 15, just so it wouldn't end up being recycled, and I promised her that it would go to someone who would love it and use it, which it will...

THE MUYUPAI LEATHER PATCHER

 I just came into several of these wonderful mechanical contraptions, by way of an amiable and persuasive fellow who got them in a storage locker purchase.
 In spite of being new, they are collectively, bent, broken, missing parts, rusty and dirty. I figure that I might get 3or 4 complete machines out of the lot. But I don't care. I think that they are marvelous contraptions. When you turn the hand wheel, parts and levers go up and down and back and forth. They are just plain fun to watch in action.
By coincidence, I had a customer come to look at a sewing machine, for leather, and, it turned out that he had actually worked for the company that made them in China at one time. He looked at one and told me that I could make shoes with it, and could sew up to about 1/2" of leather.
Anyone out there want to make shoes?

The Singer Model 15, the universal sewing machine

I have become very fond of the model 15, They are easy to service and easy to sell, because they are a great all around sewing machine. They have stitch length adjustment, reverse and feed dogs that can be lowered for free hand and darning. Button holers and zig-zaggers are easy to find and use they are not expensive to buy.

But more than that, this is a machine that has been in production in form or another since the 1880's to the present day. Yes, you can still buy a brand new one, it won't say Singer on it, but it's still a model 15 with all the same features and parts will be interchangeable with the Singer version. Should you wish to have one, the esteemed Nan Yaun Sewing Equipment Company in Hong Kong will sell you one, (with a hand crank, case extra) for just under U$50.00 plus shipping.

The modern machines are sold into Asia as commercial sewing machines, and there is a fair chance something you are wearing today was sewn on one of them. They are sold under the brand names like Carnation or Butterfly.

How this came be is a curious tale. In US occupied, post war Japan, the Military government, headed by General Douglas MacArthur, found it self governing a nation on the verge of economic and social collapse. During the war, most of Japan's industry had been converted to military production and them bombed or burnt out by the Americans. Unemployment was high, starvation threatened many and hungry people tend to be prone to disorder and riot.

In an effort to get the Japanese economy moving again, the US gave some Japanese industrialists a set of blue prints for a Singer model and told them they should start making them for export. Then they banned the importation of sewing machines into Japan, banned foreign ownership of sewing machine manufacturing companies and then got the US government to drop all import tariffs on Japanese sewing machines. I suspect that they did this with other consumer products too.

What Singer thought of this, I do not know, but I imagine they were not pleased at all. First they had to get rid of their plant in Japan, They were banned from exporting to Japan from anywhere else, and worst of all, they had to watch as a flood of lower priced Japanese copies of their design, came into the US market. These 'clones" as they came to be called, nearly put Singer out of business. Other companies like White, threw in the towel on their US production facilities and started to sell 'branded' clones instead.

I have seen them branded, White, Piedmont, Morse, Viking, Kenmore, Woodsonia, and just about any other department store house brand you can mention. Remember, this was the 1950's and just about every household had a sewing machine, as it was still cheaper to make your own clothes than buy them. They sold in the millions......And, they came in colors, blue, teal, red, black, and others, (even pink!), no more stodgy Singer black and gold!

Nothing stays the same, and the Japanese manufacturers, started to improve and evolve the original model 15 design. The lovely teal White, in a previous blog is an evolved model clone. It has the same oscillating hook, uses the same bobbin and has the tensioner on the needle bar cover. It's a Model 15 in fancy dress....

  Impressive no?
Singer sold millions of them, the Japanese made millions of them, the Chinese continue to make them today: more than 130 years after they first came onto the market. They helped rebuild the Japanese economy, made Singer rich and founded a whole new school of sewing machine design....amazing, I think, especially as I sell these marvels for about $85.00 apiece.