So, I've finally got my hands on a Singer Deluxe Monogrammer that works on my machine, and I'm toying with it. It may be interesting once I've managed to collect more cams for it.
I've been watching ebay very carefully for a while now to get it. I've deduced a few things about mechanical monogrammers as a class of products which I think are worth sharing.
1) MOST MECHANICAL MONOGRAMMERS ARE SLANT SHANK.Hardly any monogrammers sold on ebay are for vertical needle machines. There are, however, lots and lots of them available for slant shank machines. If there was a more even distribution of the devices made in the first place, the vertical needle monogrammers wouldn't be so exceedingly rare. So, I conclude that few were made for vertical needle machines. As a consequence of this, the vertical needle monogrammers sell for approximately four to seven times as much as the slant needle monogrammers. I consequently can't recommend trying to get one of these things unless you're just a hobbyist that wants to tinker with antique mechanical stuff, or you have a slant shank machine.
2) KENMORE MONOGRAMMERS ARE FOR KENMORE MACHINES.Kenmore monogrammers are not designed to fit on machines other than Kenmore machines. They're well designed, apparently well made, and probably quite useful, but not on other brands of sewing machine.
3) STANDARD SINGER MONOGRAMMERS AREN'T VERY GOOD TECHNOLOGY.The standard Singer Monogrammer is designed to work, but that's about it. Use of it requires careful marking of the fabric using a template, careful positioning of the fabric using the template, careful positioning of the cam using markings, and if you don't do everything perfectly it will screw up the letter.
4) SINGER'S MARKETING DEPARTMENT SNATCHED DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY.The Singer Deluxe Monogrammer is extremely well designed and would have been a really superb product... except that they decided to sell the cams separately. This makes it nigh impossible to get them all, which undoubtedly deterred a lot of buyers. Deluxe Monogrammers with more than two cams (besides the standard flower cam) sell for quite a bit on ebay. I have yet to see one with all of them. This tells me that fairly few people found it reasonable to buy all of them even when you could just drop into your local Singer dealer and buy them. Singer should have just included all the cams and charged a bit more. I think they shot themselves in the foot by not selling all the cams with the unit.
5) IF GREIST MADE MONOGRAMMERS WITH THEIR OWN BRAND NAME, THEY'RE VERY RARE.Greist brand monogrammers don't show up on ebay.
That's about it so far. I'll be doing a web page on these things sooner or later, with pictures and description. I'll post when it's up.
Tom Farrell