Got to nosing around some reference material on turn of the century machines, and it was suspected that National Sewing Machine Company may have bought out the American Sewing Machine Company sometime between 1890 and 1900. I found a picture of a National machine produced from the 1890s to early 1900s, marketed under the badge of "Home Queen" and sold through the two largest catalogues of the time. It is the spitting image of your machine to the detail and was actually the National Model Vindex B Top Tension. To me that implies, if the machine you have is still labeled the "American", it probably predates the acquisition of the Company who bought American Sewing Machine Company out. And the American Machine Model you have likely became the National Model Vindex B Top Tension produced after 1890. Ergo.......suspect your machine predates 1890 and the tooling making your machine made later versions sold until the early 1900s. Just looking at your cabinet.........I'd have guessed about 1910. But they didn't change styles all that much from the 1890s to about 1915. Here's the link on which I found the duplicate machine to your's and suspected links to the American Sewing Machine Company. Look for models Home Queen of the early 1900s and also the Iowa. As to value? It's all over the board on working machines of that vintage. I bought mine for 80$ thirty years ago, and could have bought one last fall for 25$, but have seen them go as high as 250$ and up. Here is a link that might be useful: Sears Sewing Machines

Michelle, to give yourself a better idea of the variety of brands you might want to pick up a couple quilting magazines. The grocery store usually carries 3 or 4 different magazines. Not only will you get some good patterns and lots of inspiration, but you can check out the ads for machines. Then go to the manufacturer's websites and see their options. Some may even be offering after-Christmas deals. I would also suggest checking out Consumer Reports to see what they have to say about quality, service, and all that. But any machine you get, as long as you can do a couple of stitches, change feet and drop the feed dogs, will make pretty quilts! I used a $69 Kenmore for over 20 years until I bought my fancy Elna and I don't really think I make nicer quilts now than I did then. It's easier to do more things with it, but 99% of what we do is sew a (fairly) straight seam and all of these machines will do that. I don't think you can go wrong. Have fun shopping and let us know what you decide to get! Kate

What you have is an AWESOME model 15 that was NOT made by Singer, but most likely is Japanese. What does it say on the rectangular gold plate under the stitch length adjuster? Or is that just a maintenance or dealer sticker? Singer never put any name on the 15s other than Singer. Unlike other manufacturers, they did not make machines on contract to other dealers or retailers, so with one or two exceptions (the Spartan is the most common) if it doesn't say Singer on the machine, it's not a Singer. Also, a Singer machine would have an oval brass (or more rarely aluminum) badge where your's has that rectangular one. The good news is that the Japanese made really, really excellent sewing machines and I use a Japanese 15 made for Montgomery Wards for my free-motion quilting machine. Nice find! Annie

I don't know where I get my information that I seem to have in my head about Coronado, several sources really. Some of it comes from someone who did a video report pre-internet that I have seen, There does seem to be a dearth of information about Coronado. So I think this might be a good place to put out what I think I know, and maybe some one who does the research can correct it. Coronado was a little ambitious company that wanted to be a part of the modern industrialization of the 1800s, in a large part led by Singer, but they did not set out to be a Singer cloning company; They were into metal work. They had a small plant (picture a brick warehouse with a small foundry and a work yard). They were from the start looking for a good product that would make them good money. It didn't go very well; they did piece work, but their main stay, low profit products were toys. They were looking for a solid product line when the sewing machine opportunity arrived, which they enthusiastically dived into. They got rid of all their non sewing machine making tooling and they made their first sewing machines in house. At that time they decided that they needed a "brand name". The owner was aware of the conquistador Coronado, and he was infatuated with the Southwest though he had never been there, but mainly he like the way it sounded: "It's a Coronado". Many people do not realize the high drama around sewing machines. Sewing machines led the industrial revolution, especially about machines and factories. Singer might be said to be the first multi-notional :-), and of course while their patents were in force, they had a monopoly. When the patent monopoly ended, a number of firms jumped in the sewing machine manufacturing game, little guys. So then, National Sewing Machine sets out to consolidate American, non-Singer sewing machine manufacturing. Singer's scale and internationalism as well as National Sewing Machine's name made it plausibly a patriotic business operation, but I think it was simple anti-competitive market consolidation. So after WWII National Sewing Machine's function is taken over by Brother, and National Sewing Machine goes out of business. I would not be surprised if National Sewing Machine and Brother had major stockholders in common at that time. So Coronado was all in on being a sewing machine manufacturer, but was not really set up for such mass production, and were approached by National Sewing Machine to have National Sewing Machine make their machines. They didn't really want National Sewing Machine to make their sewing machines, but could see that they would never be able to compete and stay afloat, so they made the deal to badge their machines. This was in the 1800s. All the other cloning companies were bought up or went out of business. Coronado survived, but turned basically into a sales company, but they had a solid contract so they could compete as an indy label. They did make another short lived attempt at doing something on the engineering side. I think the 2 step button holing sewing machine might be the only thing to come out of it. I'm not sure. The only one I have seen anything on is the one I posted about at: https://www.reddit.com/r/SewingMachinePorn/comments/1ahdwvu/missing_from_the_internet_coronado_451409_sm51409a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 This is an improved rewrite of a post I made there. This is also the machine where I first made note of Coronado, back in the late 1960s or early 1970s. I was a kid. Is this a two step button holer unicorn? If anyone knows of another, let me know .. or where a manual to this machine, a #45-1409, S.M,5-1409A can be found . Some investigative reporter wanted to know what happened to Coronado when the department stores closed and the Coronado machines disappeared from the market. He tracked the company down to a one room office in some low rent office building. He finally got a hold of the man running the place, who was seemingly well into retirement. At some point the owner just made a contract with minor department store companies to do the selling and to furnish them with machines made by his suppliers, and he put the business on auto-pilot.