Kenmore 158.18150

 

Walking through a thrift store near my home, I spied two Kenmore sewing machine cases sitting snugly next to one another on the lowest shelf gathering dust.  It was 50% Off Day at the local St. Vincent de Paul and I began to open the hard plastic cases (one in golden yellow, the other a mint green) with the odd mixture of hope, intrigue, amusement, trepidation, and excitement common to my other thrift store jaunts.  

At this point in my collecting, I wasn't a fan of Kenmores.  I grew up in a Singer household and we looked down on those who bought Kenmore machines.  These two machines I purchased that fateful day convinced me that while Singer began to cut corners and produce inferior machines in the late '60s and 1970s, Sears' contracts with Jaguar/Maruzen and Soryu in Japan ensured they would be selling wonderful, all-metal, powerful machines into the early '80s.

I tested both machines at the store's testing station.  The 1815 hummed as if it were brand new and despite a series of small scratches on the front rim of the bed, is in great shape.  The other machine, a near-mint 158.19461, stalled and moaned.  I tried moving the stitch selector, moving the needle bar by hand, checked under the top -- nothing changed.  I took both to the register, explained the problem, and the employee very generously lowered the price of the 1946 from $20 to $2.  And since this was 50% Off Day, I paid $10 for the 1815 pictured here and a whopping $0.99 for the 1946.

After figuring out the 1946, I soon found that I had purchased two very, very nice sewing machines.  Smooth, powerful, quiet, beautiful stitches, consistent tensions -- these are keepers.  The 1815 is a higher end model, as it has a substantial cam stack with utility stitches as well as a cam assembly for decorative options.  That it's in a portable carrying case makes the machine even more valuable to me as I'm 6'2" and the tables in which one often finds these machines are too small for my long legs, often of questionable quality after decades of Big Wheel dents and science projects, and take up space in my increasingly small sewing space.  

Have you ever engaged in Kenmore discrimination?