A friend who worked at a Singer Sewing Center tells this sad Featherweight story.
In the 1950's and 1960's Singer was facing sales losses to sewing machines that could do more than sew a straight stitch. These machines were mostly being imported from Japan and sold at a much lower price than Singer Featherweights.
The quality was nowhere near the same as the all metal Featherweights but price won out and eventually Featherweight production stopped. Singer started producing machines with plastic parts costing less than Featherweights that could do more than sew a straight stitch.
Singer accepted trade-ins on their new machines and in the 1960's and 1970's whenever a Featherweight was traded in it went straight into a bin behind the store to be destroyed.