Originally Posted by Sixty Fiver

This is a 400 series machine, he may have had the earlier 300 series and they came in a few colours... people consider these to be among the best machines Singer ever made and were the last really good Singer machines as their quality dropped in the late 60's and they could not compete with the Japanese, who made a better machine for less money.

Any of these will last a lifetime, they are nearly commercial quality although they are not designed to handle really heavy materials.