From the other side: All too often people buy machines of this age, post up in forums, and everyone chimes in to congratulate and give support. Those of us that have been around long enough to have had real experience with these machines usually keep quiet because it isnt kosha to rain on anyone's parade and if you do, you turn into the bad guy. Unfortunately, what that means, is heaps of readers think that many of these old things have some kind of value or were / are a good coffee machine, there are no dissenters, and so web ignited myths and icons are born and take root. I didnt watch the auction and have no idea what price was paid although I did read somewhere above something about a low price. Hope so. I am sorry to say, the model was widely known for being a coffee burner / destroyer. There were a lot around at the time particularly as Harris Coffee (later Pizza Doro) & other coffee suppliers put a lot of them out, and some catering supply shops took them on as their model of choice for anyone that bought machines, so quite common at the time. The timers, if not working, are very probably unobtainium and definitely obsolete, replaced with electronics atleast 25 years ago. They're not accurate and if you were harbouring a secret desire to use them, you will end up only using the machine semi automatically ie, with the toggle switches. I realise some want to restore machines to original and would drive themselves around the bend just to try and get working timer switches for the sake of originality..........Honestly I wouldnt waste the money unless you think someone will place value on such a piece of equipment in original type condition. I dont know why anyone would bother possibly paying a ransom for genuine Bezzera fitment toggle switches. I too would want them matched, but 2 same type jaycar or tricky dickie switches would do for me. There were troublesome steam taps as well from memory (as in they didnt wear well). Unless someone has done a "project" on it and managed to cool it down, you will be chasing your tail every time you want to make coffee, purging the super heated water out of the groups. You dont want to be on tank water. And for that reason I would, be removing the insulation and leaving it out....you dont want the machine recovering any quicker and overshooting and going even hotter..... My opinion FWIW, honestly blokes, you are be better off paying the ransom and getting into a nice well sorted modern small, semi commercial machine that will make coffee 50 times better without any fuss whatsoever. In their day, these and the Z9 Rancilio were the bane of anyone trying to produce a good cuppa and in those days (1970's), the crem de la crem were the old type mechanical faemas (post E61 and pre "tronic"). If you want to buy period equipment, my advice would be to try and find out what were the good ones at the time. Although, because the good ones were much more technically complicated inside, they are correspondingly more rooted if you actually manage to find them these days. The thing about the former, was they were built like brick sheet houses and kept on keeping on forever and a day, making appalling coffee. Ok so now I've done it again and turned myself into the bad guy for speaking the truth as I see it.....but there needs to be some balance in the discussion even if nobody takes any notice (of me 😉). Attilio very first Crema site sponsor.
