How to sell sewing machines
How to Sell a Sewing Machine
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hi all i'm ollie this is simply
stitching now what do you do with a
sewing machine that you don't want
anymore oh you might not need it because
you've upgraded
well the easiest way to get rid of it is
to sell it on to somebody that will make
good use of it
but how exactly do you do that
how do you sell a sewing machine
in today's video i'll take you through
the hints and tips for selling a sewing
machine
follow me in
tip number one
know your machine
when you come to sell a sewing machine
you should treat it as though you are
selling your car i mean you wouldn't
dream of putting an ad out saying car
for sale
you'd say what it was
you'd say the make and the model because
selling a dodge ram or a ford f-350
is a lot different to truck
isn't it you're giving your potential
buyer a lot of information just by
telling them
the name and the model of what it is
that you're trying to sell and sewing
machines are exactly the same now
modern machines
like these two behind me make our lives
a lot easier than vintage and antique
machines because they'll tell you
what they are
this one is a janome and the make and
model or on the pillar down here it's a
qc6260
the one behind me
is a brother
and its model is here it's an se 625
grandma bless her
isn't this kind
although
i know she's a singer because at one
point her decals would have said singer
across here and it actually says
singer manufacturing company across the
top
it doesn't tell me what the model number
is
they're not all vintage or antique
sewing machines are difficult to
identify this one for instance is a
singer 301 a
and not only does it say
singer
but just underneath the singer badge
here it gives you the model number
with this kenmore
it doesn't tell you what it is on the
front
but
if you turn it around
just here underneath thread stand
it will tell you
that it's a 158
17 850
now whilst it's important to know
the make and model of sewing machines
you don't necessarily need to know that
this is a singer 15k 80 and that one's
the 1591.
if you're selling to a collector the
chances are they'll know this is a 1591
and that's the k80 and if you're selling
to somebody who just wants a sewing
machine that soaks
they're not going to care all they're
going to be interested in
is this one's a hand crank and this
one's electric
but don't get me wrong you will score
brownie points if you do know that this
is the k-80 and that's the 91
but all you really need to know
is that they're both
singer 15s
and you're probably wondering how you
can find out if something's a 15
or a 27 when it doesn't actually say on
the machine but there are a couple of
websites that you can go
and find out what machine you've got
there's the ismax.net
website which has information on all
sorts of different vintage and antique
machines and there's also a website
specifically aimed at identifying singer
machines called sandman's
collectibles.com
and i'll put a link to both of those in
the description box for you
so when you're putting your listing
together for your
sale of a sewing machine make sure that
you say what it is and you don't just
put sewing machine for sale tip number
two
when you come to sell a sewing machine
is to get your terminology right
there are four different descriptive
terms that you'll hear when you sell a
sewing machine
antique vintage retro rustic
an antique is something of grandma's age
she's
um from 1912. so she's over a hundred
years old and that's the key to be an
antique the item whatever it is
has to be over a hundred
now that doesn't mean
that you can't class grandma as vintage
because you can
the confusion comes into the fact that
not everything that's vintage can be
classed as antique
both these singer 15s are from the 1950s
which means they're vintage
but they're nowhere near old enough to
be classed as antiques
to be vintage
an item has to be
20 years old
or older and as i said before that can
include
antiques
there is another term that you'll hear
quite a lot and that's retro now what
retro means is it's
something that's new
but has been designed to look like
something from the past
or
it's something from the past that
doesn't have any specific value but a
seller thinks oh this is old might be of
interest to somebody so i'll sell it as
retro
the difference between
an retro
and vintage is
both antique and vintage have got to be
old whereas retro
can be new
the last term that you'll hear
rustic
now rustic usually applies to wooden
items so you might hear this phrase in
relation to
bentwood cases or
sewing machine cabinets for instance
and basically what it means is
the item's got a bit of wear and tear on
it and it's something
back home we'd consider as being
a bit racked off
so
basically yard art
what you need to make sure is that your
description when you come to list your
sewing machine for sale
has the term
that best suits
your description of it if it's an
antique call it an antique if it's
vintage call it vintage but try to steer
clear of
rustic or retro
because you might give your potential
buyers the wrong message
unless of course you are selling yard
art in which case hey rustic's fine
tip number three
find out if it works
now this zinger 301
doesn't work at the minute and the
reason why it doesn't work is because
it's missing a vital piece of equipment
i'll just
turn it to face the camera a minute it
doesn't have a bobbin
so until i replace that this one is a
non-working machine
and if you're not able to test your
machine for whatever reason whether it's
got parts missing or whether it's
because you don't know how to work it
put that in the description that you
don't know whether it works or not being
in working condition brings us neatly on
to tip number four
the condition of the machine and when i
say condition of the machine i don't
just mean the actual sewing head i mean
everything that comes with it whether
it's the bentwood case or the cabinet or
table that it's sitting in
everything
that is part of that sewing machine is
going to make a difference to its
desirability to a buyer
now grandma here
is she's not
in a bad state of repair she's in
working condition but she has had a hard
life and you can tell at a glance she's
got damage
to the um
the shellac she has
damage
um to the
the decals and some turnip
put
a pin cushion on the arm and over time
the pins
have gone through the pincushion and
scratched the sherlock off here too
so she's nowhere near mint
but as long as i mention
all those faults if i ever came around
to selling her then a buyer has the best
information possible to know whether
this is the machine for them
and you have to do the same kind of
descriptive process for the table that
she's sitting in this is grandma's table
it's not too bad she does have
um
a knob but missy she's a little bit
rattly
she wobbles a bit
and although at one point her drawers
did lock they don't anymore
this 301 not only has it got the bobbin
missing it's also got
a bent extension table i don't know
actually you can see that
but it's raised up on one side
which suggests that at some point in the
past it was dropped
it's little things like that that you
have to bear in mind and mention when
you're describing the machine that
you're selling
another thing that a lot of people tend
to overlook is the accessories
when these
were brand new they would have come with
more than just
a foot and a bobbin
this one for instance would have had a
foot pedal
now there is a
slight annoying habit for some sellers
particularly on ebay
where
they'll separate the machine
from things like the bobby or the foot
pedal because they know that they'll get
extra money for the bobbin and the foot
pedal
the problem with doing that is if you're
selling the machine just as the head
you're decreasing the value
of the sewing machine because it's
not going to work without the bobbin
or the foot pedal
the more original accessories that you
can provide
with the machine that you're trying to
sell the more attractive it's going to
be to a buyer
tip number five
when you want to sell a sewing machine
is you need to make it look as good as
possible so you don't just need
a full description explaining all the
good and the bad points of your machine
you also need
some really good quality pictures and
when you take
pictures
you need to make sure you take more than
one
and if you are only going to take
one
make sure it's not this one
this
is the back of the machine even those of
us who live breathe eat dream about
sewing machines are gonna have a hard
time trying to guess what this is from
looking at the back
when you take pictures of your sewing
machine and you've only got room for one
make sure
it's the front
the front of the machine will tell a
buyer so much more about it it will tell
them the make the model number how many
stitches it's got it will say if it's um
computerized semi-computerized manual
you'll be able to tell at a glance if
it's got a zigzag or if it's just
straight stitch all of these things help
a potential buyer work out if your
machine is the one for them
so
as many pictures as possible if you can
only do one
make it the front
tip number six
some players
just as if you were selling a car are
going to ask you that dreaded question
they're going to want to know why you're
selling it now your reason could
possibly be that
it was your great aunt bessie's and you
think it's worth a bob or two and you
want to make a quick profit
which is fine
it's a viable reason for wanting to sell
something especially if you can use the
money to buy something that you would
put to good use
but the buyer's not going to be
interested in that when they ask you why
are you selling the machine
they don't want to know what you want to
do with the money
they want to know if there's something
wrong with the
machine
the easiest way to put their minds at
rest is to let them test drive it
um let them see it in action if you're
not a sewist yourself and you don't
actually know how to work it then let
your buyer come see it where you are
i'll let them work it and then they can
figure out for themselves if there's
something wrong with it and a better
answer to that question to be honest
with them and tell them
you don't have a need for it
tip number seven
where to sell sewing machines now there
are a couple of places that you can sell
sewing machines and it doesn't really
matter if they're
model machines vintage machines antique
machines you can sell any sewing machine
in all of these places
you've got a facebook marketplace
you've got
uh facebook groups
you've got
craigslist you've got local ads in your
area you've also got
ebay
you do have to watch ebay because ebay
isn't particularly cheap to sell
items on you've got all kinds of selling
fees you've got fees that make listings
look
um
super fancy and you've got listing fees
that will help
your listing get promoted across ebay so
you've got more chance of people
seeing what it is that you're selling
you also have
um final value value fees which is the
amount that you have to pay
once your item has sold
and all of those costs
you have to take into consideration when
you're selling
your sewing machine
if you do decide to sell your machine on
ebay because you will get a wider
audience
then make sure you check
the
completed or sold listings that are
similar to the item that you want to
sell so that you can gauge just how much
you're looking at putting it on there
for which brings us into
tip number eight value
i kind of left this one to last because
it can be the one that's most um
contentious
sewing machines vintage sewing machines
antique sewing machines
they're not particularly rare and
regardless of their age
because they were made in their
thousands and because so many of them
have lasted until now and are still
going they don't have
the usual
rarity value that most antiques or some
vintage items have another thing that
you've got to consider when it comes to
value is
where you're actually based different
locations around the world have
different price points for different
machines
if we go back to these two singer 15s
it might demonstrate my point a little
bit clearer
this one is the singer 15k 80.
um although the decals date to the 1940s
it's actually a machine from 1950.
this
is
the singer 1591
it's from around about 1952 and this is
a us model
this one the uk model model
is a hand crank
the us model
is electric and they're from the same
time frame
hand cranks like this one even ones
slightly older than this one
10 a penny in the uk
not so much in the u.s hand cranks are
harder to find which pushes the value up
a little bit
whereas
in the u.s
it's easier to find
an electric they're a bit like hens
teeth in the uk and that's down to the
popularity of the two different types of
machines in different parts of the world
and the same is true with models you
might find that you live in an area that
has
an abundance of singer 27s
but relatively few singer 66's which is
going to push the price of 66 up in your
area because they're harder to find
there's no real easy way of telling how
much a sewing machine is going to go for
in your particular area without checking
what similar machines have gone for in
your area
other factors that you need to consider
are partly the tips that we've looked at
in this video so far the condition of
the machine the accessories that come
with it if you can have as many of the
original attachments as possible
the machine
will have a higher value but having said
that
the value is only going to go up
so far
not all sewing machines are going to
fetch a high price when you come to sell
them at the moment
the sewing machine that i'm thinking of
that
does carry a high price is the singer
featherweight if you want to know more
about seeing a featherweights and how to
tell if your sewing machine is a
featherweight or a heavyweight
i've got a video on that i'll put a link
in the description box below for you
they are incredibly popular with
quilters in particular because they're
nice and easy and they can take them to
quilting retreats other sewing machines
like singer 27 for instance
don't have anywhere near the same
popularity
or
value
as the featherweight you're not going to
get anywhere near the same kind of price
for a singer 27 or even a singer 15 that
you could possibly get for a
featherweight
this singer 301 isn't worth anywhere
near as much as its little sister
the 221 or the 222 the featherweights
even though this
is a better machine
at the end of the day the price that you
ask for your sewing machine is
entirely up to you but you do need to be
realistic being old doesn't necessarily
mean it's worth anything
the one thing that you do need to bear
in mind when you're setting your price
the sewing machine is only really worth
what a buyer is prepared to pay for it i
hope you liked today's video if you did
give it a thumbs up and why not check
out some of the other videos i've got on
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links coming up any minute now or the
ones in the description box below for
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video in the meantime whatever you're
sewing whatever you're sewing it with
embrace your creativity and have fun
thank you ever so much for watching and
i'll see you next time bye for now