My mom had an ancient Singer and she never wanted to upgrade it. It didn't have a lot of features and the electric motor was actually retrofitted but the damn thing could sew through leather if it wasn't too thick.

I just bought this same model for the same price, but with a cabinet. $30 alone is still a good price. Aside from the top gear that's plastic and can fail, these machines run forever and are heavy duty enough to handle denim

Edit: just want to say that old, pre 80's, Singers are the ones that run forever. Newer ones have a bad reputation for going to shit quickly. I believe the one you have is late 60's early 70's

Yup, even if you take it yo a shop fit a professional tune up at $100 or so, still worth it :) Great find, enjoy.

I inherited a Singer 1960s era and it still worked wonderfully. But, I ended up buying a newer machine when my sewing projects changed and I needed a variety of feet (walking foot, quarter inch foot). The old machine came with just a couple of feet and it was not possible to buy a walking foot that would fit it (it did not use the standard Singer press on foot). I ended up giving it to my friend who uses it for occasional costume making and it works fine for her!

Depends on how old it is… Singer uses more and more plastic over time. When I bought a used one I made sure it was all metal. I would have gone with mostly metal too but lucked out.

Nope. Several reasons. First, while this is metal on the outside, it probably have plastic gears that are ready to evaporate at this point. (This is how power gets from the motor to the needle and the feet dog/bobbin assembly.) While “fixing it up” sounds great, you need a professional to re-gear the machine and then re-time it, or it won’t make a stitch. There are brand new machines that cost as much as an overhaul.

Assuming you got it working perfectly, you’re still working with something that was never designed to work with synthetic fabrics, can’t do chain stitching (which is what you want on anything stretchy and which will sort of approximate what a server does), and you’re missing out on all the things that are considered standard on a basic machine these days, like a self threading needle and electronic lock stitching.

The nostalgia for these machines is great and all, but this will cost you more money and more frustration than just buying a new, quality machine (like a mid-level brother). Unless this is literally “grandma’s old machine” that made your baby blanket, this is a hard pass.

That's a howl of a deal

A lot of new singers are just flat out not qc'd (no hole for the needle to go through the plate etc) but lots of those older ones are GREAT machines

Singer doesn’t even make sewing machines now. They sold the name. Old Singers are great. New Singers are not.

I had that exact model. It was a good sewing machine, but eventually I stripped out some gear inside and had to scrap it. You can't sew a bunch of heavy denim with that and expect it to survive.

I think I have that one! It sees like a dream. Got is used at a sewing machine shop for $150. It was tuned up and ready to go. $30 is a good price. Depending on where you live a tune up would be around $100. I have given up on new machines - I break them too easily.

Great find, but it’s a bit too new to last you a lifetime. That machine was made after Singer started using plastic gears, which tend to strip out over time. You can find some info about it here: https://www.singersewinginfo.co.uk/457 The machine won’t matter too much when you’re just learning though, so don’t worry too much and just enjoy learning the craft!

My mom had a Singers from the 1960's, not sure of the model but it still works, weighs a ton! My sister inherited it. My grandma had the old Singer with the manual foot pedal. My mom and uncle bought her a more modern Singer years later but she held onto the old Singer which went to my aunt, it still works too!