Kenmore 148.12190 anchor

This morning I mentioned my (new-to-me) Kenmore 1803 Camster wasn't the heaviest thing to follow me home from Indiana ... even with its lovely wood cabinet.  Let me introduce y'all to my heaviest aircraft carrier anchor ... err .. sewing machine.  Interestingly enough, it's also the one I have technically owned the longest.

Kenmore 148.12190 sewing Anchor

Yes, I have indeed named this poor bedraggled machine "the Anchor" just as the other sleek and beautiful Kenmore 1803 is officially now named "the Camster".  (Wait until I introduce Timex ...)  I managed to clean off the surface ick enough to snap a pic, but there will be no sewing until it gets an official inner clean and servicing.  Honestly, I cannot recall sewing on this thing for at least twenty years.

Yeah, twenty years ... my Mom brought this home for my tenth birthday back in 1983 when it was traded in at the Sears store she worked at and none of the other employees were interested in it.  Mom says two things about that: 1) She only paid $5 for it at the time, and 2) I was (once again) disappointed because it was not the horse I asked for each year starting with my 5th birthday.  My comment to Mom today was that at the time she gave it to me, the Anchor weighed more than I did.  After she had a good laugh at that, Mom agreed.

By some strange twist of fate, this has to be the clearest pic I've posted in quite a while here ... for a machine given to me 28 years ago and has been missing/misplaced/hiding for at least the last dozen years.

When I remarked to Mom over the phone today about how amazing I find it that both the Camster and the Anchor were sitting in Sears store at the same time, Mom informed me that the Camster was considered top-of-the-line at that time ... while the Anchor was considered low-end ("bottom-of-the-line") and their prices were inversely related to their weights.

Oh last note: Mom couldn't recall who made the "148." machines ... so I googled.  Then I tried Bing, Yahoo, and even Wikipedia out of desperation.  Finally got an answer over at PatternReview's message board from member FrBasil, who informs me that a company called Soryu made it for the Kenmore brand.  Another public thank you for that!

Hey Google: Soryu manufactured the 148.12190 for Kenmore.  I'm still peeved that I couldn't find that out just by googling no matter what search phrase I tried ...

So between the three of us 1973 year models ... the Anchor is definitely still the worse for the wear.  The Camster still looks the best for her age.  And I am somewhere in the middle of the two.  LOL