The Online Machine Knitter Community is Amazing!

The last couple of days, I had a number of interesting emails and was happily writing knitters back about this or that when I heard from Will, who needed a manual for a Passap Goldy.

There are so many machines out there that I've never even heard of, and all I know to do is Google them and see what I find.  I had the link Will sent with a picture of the Goldy and I found a few more pictures.  It is a nice quality, plastic, standard gauge, single bed machine with an overhead tension unit, and I liked what I saw.  It's not something we can buy new now, as far as I can tell, but there are used ones on the market in nice shape. 

Off topic here, but I believe there has never been a better time to buy a nice machine if your budget is limited.  Some of the used machines I see today for under $1000 went for over $5000 originally.  My first machine, which cost about three house payments and worked like a charm, can be found for a couple hundred dollars including a ribber (which was another house payment back then).  Nearly all these machines were built to last, and with their high cost and the characteristics of knitters, most of them were well cared for and a few were not used much, because the owner either got discouraged or it was a second or third machine.  I even advise people not to settle for the older stuff, since they can get punch card units, electronic units, and accessories, if they'll shop a while.

I've been corresponding with several people this very week who got fantastic buys on machines with all the expensive accessories that we used to save up for months to buy.

Anyway, I put one request for a copy of that missing manual on one internet Yahoo group, Passap Knits, and had about four people help me within a few hours.  I even picked up a couple of other rare manuals that will be a blessing to someone else. 

Will has his manual, thanks to Mark, and he also has a lovely basic pattern book that was produced for that machine.  Mark advises that the Goldy is a fantastic machine. 

What was even more fun to hear was back from Will, who already has the machine knitting and likes it extremely well (Will started on a Bond).

Do you have any rare manuals?  If you will send me a .pdf, I promise to keep it in my fairly extensive manual files and send it out to knitters who ask.  Certainly, we could share these things on an .ftp site, but the new knitters don't know about all the places knitters stash files. I probably send out a manual every month or two.