Thank you all for your advice.
My friend has the machine to try before she buys it is being offered to her by an aquaintence at work who has used it once and could not get on with it, she has told my friend to give her what she thinks is a fair price for it.
I have told my friend to try everything on it (she is a quilter) so will have some fun I'm sure.
The machine can be bought at Amazon and other places for as little as £370.00 about half price.
I've seen it at some quilt shows so I have heard of the make and there is a lot on forums about it, now it's up to her, she has to make her own decision.
Thanks again
Anne

I confess to not having heard of Silver Viscount, but I have heard of the Silver Reed knitting machines (actually I have an old Silver Reed typewriter and it was excellent). My suggestion for your friend is to ask if she can have a play on it, to she how it feels to her, and to make sure that she takes a range of different fabrics - lawn, calico, denim, quilt sandwich (if she quilts) and to try out various of the functions (I personally investigate the buttonhole stitch as well as straight, zig-zag and a couple of others just to see the capabilities).

I just looked it up too. It looks like they are British made and they have a 15 year warranty which is amazing. The prices are also very good. The 9500E seems to be a special edition. It looks like a good deal at £699 but I have never tried one of these machines so I don't know what they are like.

Anne, a Google search lead me here: http://www.sewingmachinediscount.co.uk/category/24/silver-viscount.html

Apparently it is a machine from the UK, which is where you are. Hope that is some help.

Hi,
Does anyone have any experience of the Silver 5900E sewing machine, a friend has been offered a 1 year old machine and wondered if I knew anything about it, other than having heard of the make I could not advise her, I said the TQS family might be able to help
Anne