Posted 4 years ago
Dadowns1
(1 item)
Singer 201 Texas Centennial Badge in original cabinet. 1936 school bell. I acquired this machine recently. I think it’s so neat and would love to find out more about it.
Singer 201 Texas Centennial | ||
| Sewing305 of 2598 |  |  |
Hi, Dadowns1. :-)
A Texas Centennial Singer 201 is kind of a double-doozy, because there aren't all that many Texas Centennial Singers, and the Singer model 201 is already kind of special in that it's widely regarded as the best sewing machine Singer ever made.
Unfortunately, we can't really get into value here, as it's against the Collectors Weekly Show & Tell rules. You can get an appraisal here:
https://www.valuemystuff.com/us/appraisal
But it isn't free. You'd probably be better off just reading the advice of one of the International Sewing Machine Collectors' Society (ISMACS) experts:
http://ismacs.net/sewing_machine_articles/how_much_is_my_sewing_machine_worth.html
Anyway, about your machine:
Per the Singer serial number tables at ISMACS, serial number AE052909 was one of a block of 4,000 consecutive serial numbers (050366 through 054365) allotted by the central office to one of the factories December 16th, 1935, and all were destined to be stamped into the beds of model 201 machines:
AE- 050366 054365 201 4000 December 16 1935
AE- 118016 119015 201 1000 April 8 1936
http://ismacs.net/singer_sewing_machine_company/serial-numbers/singer-ae-series-serial-numbers.html
You might wonder why I excerpted two lines of information from that serial number table. That's because the allotment date is not necessarily the manufacture date of any given sewing machine associated with that block of serial numbers.
A reasonably safe assumption (yes) is that if there were no wars, strikes, factory equipment breakdowns, etc., all 4,000 machines probably rolled off the assembly line by the allotment date (April 8th, 1936) of the next block of serial numbers destined to be stamped into the beds of model 201 machines.
You also might wonder about your machine possibly having been manufactured in 1935, yet badged for the Texas Centennial in 1936. That's not really unusual:
*snip*
Quote:
Originally Posted by Skyangel View Post
Interesting. Serial number in picture dates it to 1926, but it has a 1936 Texas Exposition Badge. Wonder if they just took some machines sitting in inventory and changed the badge to ship it to Texas?
10 years is an awfully long time (though those particular 10 years were full of a lot of upheaval and a shortage of money worldwide, so maybe sewing machine sales were low enough to see them have a stock pile that big.), but what Singer did is make machines and store them til they were to be shipped to dealers (and possibly in this case to the Texas Exhibition) The machines didn't get their badges til they were about to leave the factories.
That's how I ended up with a 1948 Singer Centennial 15-90. The DH read that on a site somewhere, but I don't know where he found it.
So assuming they were new machines leaving Singer's factories to attend this event, that's probably what happened. Otherwise, jennb is probably right.
*snip*
https://www.quiltingboard.com/vintage-antique-machine-enthusiasts-f22/texas-centennial-machine-t196911-2.html
About the model 201:
https://www.singersewinginfo.co.uk/201
British sewing machine expert Alex Askaroff waxes rhapsodic about the 201:
https://sewalot.com/singer_201k_sewalot.htm
A manual for the 201:
http://ismacs.net/singer_sewing_machine_company/manuals/singer-model-201-sewing-machine-manual.pdf
Your decal set is called Paperclip:
https://www.singersewinginfo.co.uk/decals/decal07
Your cabinet:
http://ismacs.net/singer_sewing_machine_company/48_cab.html
About the factory where the machine head was made (all Singers with AE prefix numbers were made at Elizabethport):
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/
About the factory were the cabinet was probably made:
https://orangebeanindiana.com/2019/06/12/south-bends-singer-sewing-machine-company/
Before I forget about it, you may be wondering why your pictures are sideways. That's because the Collectors Weekly Show & Tell software doesn't play nicely with all photo sources.
You could try trimming your photos so that the long sides are a bit shorter. That usually does the trick.
In case I forgot something else, here is a collection of vintage sewing machine links:
https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/285089-vintage-sewing-machine-help
But it's a lot to sift through, so you can just ask questions in a comment here, and if I don't know the answer, I'll go back out into the wilds of the Internet to see if I can find an answer (well, maybe about ten or twelve hours from now, that is, as I'm about to call it a day).
Oh my, you are an encyclopedia of sewing machine history! Thank you for all the links, I will delve into more tomorrow.
Dadowns1, You're welcome. :-)
I'm just an old Internet surfer who's developed a not altogether explicable fascination with vintage sewing machines.
After I commented yesterday, that conversation at the quiltingboard forum about Texas Centennial badged Singers was troubling me a bit, because of the mention of a 1948 vintage machine with such a badge. Huh? The Texas Centennial celebration was in 1935-1936. Perhaps it was just a typo.
I've gone back out there to try to find more information about Texas Centennial badged Singer sewing machines, but the information seems a bit thin on the ground.
Here is one source, but the emphasis is on Singer Featherweight models:
https://singer-featherweight.com/blogs/schoolhouse/texas-centennial-featherweight-1936