A 1973 Olympia Creminia 67, in the super rare copper color!
If you've heard about Creminas you know they've had a cult following for years. Perhaps being the only "home" lever to come from Switzerland has caused coffee snobs to give them extra credit. Or maybe the genuinely superior build quality of what is essentially a "better" La Pavoni really is worth the price premium.
At any rate, the coffee personality James Hoffman, just put a nail in the coffin of those trying to find a "bargain" Cremina, with his recent video extolling the virtues of this classic home lever. That review alone seems to have driven up prices on these already scarce commodities, 20-30 percent higher!
They do genuinely "feel nice" in your hands, in ways the Pavoni levers never quite matched. And there's a lot to be said for making "exquisite little coffees" on an "exquisite little machine. Being "happy" just seeing your espresso machine in the morning is genuinely worth a lot. But the design is similar enough to Pavoni, that it's ability to command an exponentially higher price than even a Pavoni Professional, has always been open to legitimate debate.
What hasn't been open to debate is that they've held that price premium for years, and just seem to keep going up!
New machines go in the 3-4000 range now!
There simply has never been enough of these available to put pressure on the prices of used ones.
Since so many owners seem to keep them for life, vintage machines like this literally often only show up for sale when somebody dies!
This lightly used Cremina, we're sorry to say, is from the estate of a beautiful lady. (Her Social Security number is etched into the end of handle, in case it ever got stolen!)
It was nice to start when we got it, but of course, we've completely rebuilt it.
Since plain old used Creminas are now selling on ebay in the 1400-1500 range, we were genuinely torn about how to price this. Especially with the super rare original color.
Ours has to be better than an ebay yard sale Cremina, no? But the prices seem crazy.
A neighbor recently accidentally found out about us on the web ("I didn't know you were THAT into espresso machines, Dan!") AND just happened to spot the Cremina in the shop right after seeing the Hoffman video. So a deal was worked out, even before we could list it. (His Pavoni Mignon will now be his back-up machine.) So don't get mad if you "missed" this one, you never really had a chance at it!
Somebody actually emailed asking if we had a Cremina in the "pipeline," right after this deal was made, so that guy came really close to snagging it before it was listed as well! Reminds us that it can't hurt to email if you're looking for something specific.
And this latest "Cremina frenzy" makes us think back to the amazing "new old stock" Cremina we found, and sold, a couple years ago (yes, it was actually unused.) That was in the early days of VoltAge110, when we were lucky to get 20 hits in a month! Now it seems like we should've held onto it!
Some vintage espresso machines can genuinely be an "investment" of sorts. (Tell that to the wife!)
If you're looking for a Cremina, our advice would be to buy something else until or unless one falls into your lap, at a "reasonable" price. Which will probably never happen. So concentrate on getting the most out of the machine you have for now. Instead of lusting after the one you may never find...