My Top Ten Reasons to Buy a Vintage Sewing Machine

Probably one of those questions that people outright ask or at least think about is: Why would you choose a vintage sewing machine over something that is new that had hundreds of built in stitches?

Here is my top ten reasons for buying vintage

1.  Most people only use straight stitch and a basic zig-zag stitch so why pay for hundreds of unused stitches
2.  Metal gears. No plastic parts that can literally shatter. Having a seized up or frozen machine is not a catastrophic event for a metal geared machine.
3.  Availability of parts. You can find the parts for most vintage machines quite easily. Some machines are more easy to find parts than others but with enough patience you can usually find most parts. Keep in mind most of these machines are 50 years old or older. Modern plastic machines have planned obsolescence so parts on some, only a few years old, can be impossible to find. They want you to buy a new machine not repair.
4.  No computer. You don't even need to worry about expensive computer parts
5.  Ease of use. Vintage Singer machines are super simple to use and to thread making them a good choice for a beginner.
6.  Easy to maintain. Can you follow simple written instructions and drawn out diagrams? If you said yes then you can oil and grease your own vintage sewing machine. Most vintage sewing machine manuals explain how to do this.
7.  Heavy duty. Yep there are those metal gears again. Vintage machines can sew heavy denim and silk. However, despite some ebay seller claims, these are domestic machines not industrial. Some can stitch light leather on occasion but no domestic machine is going to be able to sew thick leather every day for 8 hours a day.
8.  They were made to last. These were investment pieces back in the day. People paid quite a bit for their Singer 201 back when it first came out and they expected it to work for many years
9.  For a price between $50 and a couple hundred you can get a machine that is superior to anything modern in that price range today. 
10.  They are just awesome and can come with great stories particularly if you purchase them from an original owner.

There are just a few of my reasons for finding vintage machines a wise choice. I'll cover more topics on some of the advantages later on.