Perhaps I was wrong… ‘red mercury’ truly does seem to be a dangerous thing! According to this Saudi Gazette/Okaz piece, its rumored presence in old sewing machines is still raising a furor… at least at the shops of sewing machine repairmen!

Red mercury continues to sow discord
Mohammed Al-Surei’i

BISHA – Fahd Abdullah Hanash, lawful inheritor of a now defunct sewing machine repair shop in Bisha, was taken by surprise recently to find a crowd of local residents knocking at the door of his home demanding the return of sewing machines they had left with his deceased father.

Upon witnessing the recent rush to buy Singer sewing machines following rumors that the needles contained the elusive substance known as “red mercury”, locals recalled the machines they had left at the repair shop of Abdullah Hanash Al-Ghamdi years before. When they found the store itself bolted up, they made their way to his home, where Fahd, son of Abdullah, greeted them

Fahd, at the insistence of the crowd, decided to open up the dusty storeroom and see what his father had left.
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The issue has a lighter side, though. Saudi Gazette also reports that a Riyadh intermediate school has come up with a humorous theater piece about how people fall for the most unlikely things: School sketch to warn against sewing machines