My First Singer VS2 - Do Spiderwebs Count As Patina?

This was kind of a weird Craiglist find.  I scour it pretty regularly.  A couple of days ago I saw the ad for this guy, along with a 27 I'll post next.

What makes it weird is that the ad was two weeks old.  I know I've checked CL at least half a dozen times in the span.  Shoot I've updated the 221 ad in that time and know I verified it was up.  I kept the ad for this machine open in a window and went back and refreshed the search, and it disappeared!  I refreshed the ad itself and it didn't go to 'deleted by user' or 'expired'.  I'm really not sure what happened.  But the listing for the ad in my search never came back.  I checked my blocked ads just to make sure I didn't accidentally remove it and it wasn't there either.  Just weird.

I emailed the owner and hoped for a response.  The weekend passed with no contact.  I tried again Monday and this time did get a response, they had been out of town.  The price was darn cheap so I didn't haggle at all, just asked when I could come buy them.

I had half wondered if maybe it was a VS1.  The CL pictures were of the quality to make that an uncertainty.  All I could see was that it was a vibrating shuttle and it had a fiddle bed.  I dragged the boy out to the truck and headed south. 

When we arrived the first thing that was obvious was it was a VS.  The next was that is must have spent the last hundred years as a Halloween prop or something.  The thing was coated with spiderwebs.  Just picking it up and moving it coated my hands with stickiness.  Carrying it out, moving it in and out of the truck and setting it up to take pictures knocked off most, but still there are quite few.  I tried to preserve the most majestic for some pictures.

Other than spiders the machine has cultivated a pretty spectacular layer of rust.  Of course nothing moves.  I was surprised that the side cover screw was removable without breaking out the vicegrips.

Once again (as with the two IFs), the serial number is hand written on the inside cover plate.  I think I'll clear coat over it to protect it for the next century and a half.

The face plate was a little more stuck, but not bad.  A bit of effort with the Chapman ratchet drive was enough to break the screws free.  Once they were out a small bit of prying with a screwdriver loosened it up to pull free.

The hardest work I did so far was scouring the serial number to the point that I could read it.  It comes out as an 1887 serial.

(Edit 14 March:  Oops, looked at the cabinet again.  It's not the cabinet for the VS2, but for the 27.  Oh well.  I do have the 1884 IF treadle that uses the same mounting pins as the VS2 so I'll recreate that top and hope it's close enough that I don't have the ghost of Robert Whitehall showing up in a snit.)

A bonus with the machine was the cabinet top.  Unfortunately the irons were not included.  I do have enough orphaned irons laying around that it's not that great of a tragedy.  And it's one treadle top that I won't have to make myself.

The coffin top was missing.  They show up on Ebay fairly regularly, but I don't recall prices.  Anything other than dirt cheap will have me turning on the wood working equipment to make my own.  At least as a test to see if I can recreate the design.

I was happy the drawers hadn't disappeared.  I know I couldn't recreate those pulls.

I talked to the wife and a ultrasonic cleaner is on the purchase list.  Probably next month when we get back from the family fishing trip to Oklahoma.  Too much going on with scouts, taxes, spring breaks, etc... to let myself get sidetracked with playing with a new tool (toy) that will suck my attention away for a few weeks.

But oh boy, there are going to be some shiny parts on this guy when I do get it.  That's for sure.