Posted 4 years ago
Nonie1951
(1 item)
This was my mother’s machine. Would like to know the manufacture date. It works with the knee bar. I learned to sew on it in the 50’s and remember it always being in our house.
Vintage Singer | ||
| Sewing263 of 2539 |  |  |
Hi, Nonie1951. :-)
So you learned to sew on this machine, huh? Pretty cool.
Yeah, you can tell that this machine wasn't just for show, because you can see some "pin rash" on the top of the horizontal arm. The machines that have perfect paint jobs and decal sets have either been restored, or were a gift to an unenthusiastic recipient. };-)
Anyway: serial number "AE509394" was one of a block of 10,000 consecutive serial numbers (501441 through 511440) that was allotted to a particular Singer factory (in this case, Elizabethport) on May 26th, 1937, and all of the serial numbers were destined to be stamped into the beds of model 99 machines:
*snip*
AE- 501441 511440 99 10000 May 26 1937
*snip*
http://ismacs.net/singer_sewing_machine_company/serial-numbers/singer-ae-series-serial-numbers.html
http://ismacs.net/singer_sewing_machine_company/singer_dating_by_serial_number.html
FYI, that allotment date isn't the manufacture date for your machine; it's the date that the central office gave the factory its marching orders about that block of numbers.
A vintage sewing machine enthusiast and expert came up with an Excel that will estimate the manufacture date of a particular machine, but you need an account at this forum to download it:
https://www.victoriansweatshop.com/post/excel-2010-sewing-machine-production-date-calculator-8214151
Alternately, you could get similar results using free tools, and some elbow grease:
https://www.timeanddate.com/date/dateadd.html
But, it's all fairly speculative, and you have to make certain assumptions (yeah) like how many days off the factory workers got, et cetera.
What seems like a reasonably safe assumption to make (during non-war years, anyway) is that your machine was manufactured before the next pertinent block of numbers was allotted:
AE- 663491 673490 99 10000 September 1 1937
About the model 99:
https://www.singersewinginfo.co.uk/99k
I suspect that yours is a model 99-13.
Here's a manual:
https://www.manualsdir.com/manuals/719435/singer-99-13.html?original=1
Your decal set is called Filigree:
https://www.singersewinginfo.co.uk/decals/decal04
About the Elizabethport factory:
https://www.singersewinginfo.co.uk/elizabethport
https://www.ericwilliamsblog.com/left-behind-in-elizabeth-the-singer-manufacturing-company-part-1/
https://www.ericwilliamsblog.com/left-behind-in-elizabeth-the-singer-manufacturing-company-part-2/
In case I forgot anything, here is a collection of vintage sewing machine links:
https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/285089-vintage-sewing-machine-help
But it can be a lot to sift through, so if you have any questions, don't hesitate simply to ask them here in a comment. :-)