Cremina Received!

Finally, after a long period of waiting, the Olympia Cremina I have been waiting for have arrived. I was pleasantly surprised because it actually arrived last Wednesday which is two days earlier than predicted by the shipping company! However, I have not been about to play with or post about the "new to me" Cremina until today as I have been extremely busy with final exams for graduate school. However, now all that is done, I'm glad that I can finally able to play with my new toy.

The Cremina came double boxed as promised from the seller; however, the packing job was better than average but less than stellar. The dreaded shipping damage have materialized as the Cremina sustained some crushing damage due to shipping. The case was pushed forward making it really hard to removed the simple case from the machine. For the next time I'm buying something like this from online sellers, I will refer them to OrphanEspresso shipping guide as they have excellent intructions on how to ship espresso machine correctly. http://www.orphanespresso.com/PACKING-Your-Machine-to-Ship_ep_550-1.html

The first thing I noticed as I took the Cremina out of its shipping box is its amazing small size! Here is a comparision shot between the Cremina and the Musica; the Musica look like a giant next to the Cremina!

Even though the Cremina has a small foot print, it is quite heavy. As I pick the thing up, I imagine some of the components must be crafted from dark matter by these Swiss craftmen! I find the descriptions from the seller to be quite accurate! The cremina is in amazing condition consider its age; it was manufactured in 1983! Almost 30 years later and the paint on the case is still in awsome condition! As promised there is no rust. There are some blemish however from the shipping as you can see from these pictures:

These shows the side corners of the case from which the paint have been chipped due to contact with the drip tray! It is a pity that there are these little damage that occur on such a nice condition Cremina; however, it is a relatively small spot that can be fixed easily. The thing is I have to find a good matching paint to touch it up. It is a classic orange metallic Cremina paint.

The Stainless steel as well as the Chrome on the machine is in quite good condition. There is not much scratches that I can see but due to age, there is a layer of oxidation that need to be removed by polishing.

The portafilter is in amazing condition. From the look of it as well as the basket, it seem this Cremina have not been used very much at all. The chrome on the inside of the the portafilter is shining quite brightly which mean not much espresso have been pulled through it.

Overall, I'm really happy that the deal turn out to be a good one and I'm looking forward to restoring this beauty. I also look forward to sampling the nectar that this machine is reputed to be able to pull.