Why experienced antique dealers are happy to find an old car

My friend’s grandmother was very poor, but she inherited this thing. For about twenty years, the thing was stored in the attic, no one suspected its value. But thanks to the usual old sewing machine, the friend realized her dream and went to Paris!

The modern generation can hardly guess what is inside this vintage wooden chest. He talks to older people about a lot.





Yes, it was in these cases once sold and stored. sewing-machinemanufactured by the Podolsk Mechanical Plant. I think thirty years ago, there were in almost every family.





I had such a machine in my house too, and I remember how long I could admire the ornate patterns with which the metal case was gracefully painted. They say that on each model these images are completely different.





Now sewing machines look very different and more like a piece of plastic than a work of art, which is a pity.





Your story. podola lead since pre-revolutionary times, and their prototypes were the products of the famous factory "Singer". Art Nouveau style, inherent in that time, influenced even the simplest things, and manufacturers tried to decorate objects in the most unusual way.





Isaac Singer, the first manufacturer of this kind of products, took up the improvement of sewing machines because of the debt hanging over him, and in just 11 days the first Singers were born. In 1851, the products of this American company were already known all over the world. Soon Singer’s company became one of the largest manufacturers of sewing machines.





By the beginning of the twentieth century, the situation had changed. Supplying sewing machines from America to Russia became economically unprofitable, because there were many competitors offering similar products for a lower price. Then the management of the company "Singer" decided to establish the production of sewing machines in the suburbs.





For this purpose, land was bought in the then little-known city of Podolsk, and a factory was built for relatively little money, and the presence of a railway nearby contributed to the unprecedented success of the business. After all, this facilitated the delivery of goods to different parts of the country!





The new factory was rapidly gaining momentum. For a relatively short time, the Singer from the city of Podolsk became one of the largest in Europe. Before the outbreak of the First World War, the factory produced 600,000 sewing machines a year! Only in Russia there were more than 3,000 branded stores of the company, in addition, machines were sent to customers by mail.





Podolsk Singer machines have gained wide popularity abroad, as evidenced by large supplies of our sewing units to China, Japan and Persia. In 1914, Russia ranked second in the world in the sale of sewing machines after the United States, selling them annually in the amount of 63.5 million rubles!





The Singer office made a significant artistic contribution to the architecture of the city of St. Petersburg, decorating Nevsky Prospekt. In addition to having a beautiful facade, the building was considered technically perfect: it already had elevators and an automatic system for cleaning roofs from snow.





And this is how we see this building now. By the way, this is where the VKontakte office is currently located!





In 1918, the Podolsk plant "Singer" was nationalized by the Bolsheviks and until 1923 it was practically inactive, but already from 1923 the production of sewing machines "Singer" was restored with one caveat: now they were produced under the name "PMZ" (Podilsk Mechanical Plant).





The design of the sewing machine "Singer" was so successful that the production of such machines continued for thirty years virtually unchanged! And fashion patterns of the early XX century have become a signature feature of Podol products.





No wonder that around such a useful, necessary and well-known thing there are many legends. According to one of them, in 1998, the company “Singer” announced the search for cars with a serial number beginning with one.

According to rumors, the lucky owner of this rarity expects a reward in the amount of 30 thousand to a million dollars, so antiquarians began to massively buy cars. There is no official confirmation of this, but, as they say, there is no smoke without fire.





It is this legend that attracts hunters for precious metals. Allegedly, early samples of Russian “Singers” contain in themselves metal. Recently there was even a rumor that in the original needles of rare machines is a rare substance – red mercury!





Before you get rid of an old thing or "write off" it in the attic, it is worth thinking. It may also bring happiness to your home. As you can see, old sewing machines are much more than a simple tool.

If you were interested in this story, share the article with your friends, perhaps they also have somewhere buried this wonderful rare invention.