Posted 4 years ago
Pilgram8899
(1 item)
hi cleaning out my home and found this machine in the corner downstairs. It was given to me as a gift some time ago by my then boyfriend's mother.
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Hi, Pilgram8899. :-)
Cool. Yes, virtually everything has value (if you've taken a look around Collectors Weekly Show & Tell, you've probably seen a fairly amazing array of things that you previously might not have known existed, let alone things that people value sufficiently to collect).
We're not supposed to get into concrete values here at CW S&T (there's a link at the top of the page for appraisals but it's not free), so I'll give you a link to an article written by one of the experts at the International Sewing Machine Collectors' Society (ISMACS) website:
http://ismacs.net/sewing_machine_articles/how_much_is_my_sewing_machine_worth.html
Just to give you a better idea of what you have, serial number EM492338 was one of a block of 50,000 consecutive serial numbers (478985 through 528984) allotted by the Singer central office to one of their factories on June 4 1957, and all were destined to be stamped into the beds of model 99K machines:
EM- 478985 528984 99K 50000 June 4 1957
EM- 701008 751007 99K 50000 August 29 1957
http://ismacs.net/singer_sewing_machine_company/serial-numbers/singer-em-series-serial-numbers.html
The reason I excerpted two lines of information from that serial number table is to give you an idea of when your particular machine head rolled off of the assembly line. Some people think the allotment date of the pertinent block of numbers is the manufacture date, and that's probably not the case.
However, it's probably a reasonably safe assumption that all of the machine heads associated with that block of numbers were manufactured by the allotment date of the next pertinent block of numbers.
Anyway, on to the model. The fact that the model number has a "K" suffix means that it was made at Singer's Clydebank (formerly called Kilbowie) factory.
About the model 99:
https://www.singersewinginfo.co.uk/99k
In case you don't have a manual, here's a soft copy:
http://needlebar.org/main/sident/99.pdf
The decal set is called "Eye":
https://www.singersewinginfo.co.uk/decals/decal03
I can't tell what the face plate and rear access panel look like, but here is a gallery for you to look through:
https://www.singersewinginfo.co.uk/gallery_faceplates
Your cabinet looks like the No. 72 Cabinet (it's interesting that there might be a serial number stamped into the cabinet [J022843], but unfortunately, I don't have any information about that):
http://ismacs.net/singer_sewing_machine_company/72_cab.html
About the Clydebank/Kilbowie factory:
https://www.singersewinginfo.co.uk/kilbowie
August 1934 aerial photographs of Singer's Kilbowie (Clydebank, Scotland) factory:
https://canmore.org.uk/collection/1257700
https://canmore.org.uk/collection/1257701
https://canmore.org.uk/collection/1257702
https://canmore.org.uk/collection/1257703
https://canmore.org.uk/collection/1257704
A circa 1934 documentary made at Singer's Kilbowie (Clydebank, Glasgow, Scotland) factory:
https://movingimage.nls.uk/film/1592
A Google Satellite view of the area that once hosted the Kilbowie Singer plant (there is still a railway station called "Singer" on the northeast corner):
Singer
Kilbowie Rd, Clydebank G81 2JN, United Kingdom
https://goo.gl/maps/ckxa4RrU85UBHXHs9
Here's a collection of vintage sewing machine links:
https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/285089-vintage-sewing-machine-help
However, I realized it's a lot to sift through, so if you have any questions, you can just ask them here in a comment, and if I don't know the answer off of the top of my head, I'll go back out there into the wilds of the Internet and try to find one.