Greetings everyone. After viewing some very helpful information on this site, I've decided to buy a la Cimbali Junior grinder. I have a seller lined up. Here's the descriptions he's given me.

Well, it's in great condition, I'd say no better or worse than new. I did remove the trap door at the throat of the hopper for some reason. I think it was to seal it from air infiltration. No other mods though, I did remove the built in tamper cause it was in the way and useless anyway.

I used it once a day, for say 16 months thereabouts. I may occasionally used it 2x in one day but that would be very rare.

Would any of these "modifications" impair functionality or substantially lessen the value?

Thank you for your help with this, folks.

The trap door isn't anything you necessarily need - it's there to act like a gate to prevent beans from feeding into the burrs. With some grinders that also have this feature, you can remove the hopper with beans still in it if you close the gate, but the Junior has a few screws that secure the hopper so I don't believe that would be anything you'd do with it anyway. I grind per shot with mine, so I dump the beans in there and then close the gate to try and minimize the bean pieces flying out/popcorning. The tamper isn't something you need either because most people around the coffee sites have a separate tamper that gives you more control over the tamping process, and personally I've removed that part from all of my grinders and never used it. You should be able to use the grinder without these parts, but if the seller has them you can always put them back on if you wanted to. It's not too hard to do.

Thank you for the info!

The Cimbali Max Hybrid grinder, that Chris sells, produces much better grinds than the Cimbali Junior or its cogener, the Cadet, the old automatic version of the grinder. This is not to say that the Junior is a bad grinder. I have owned 2 of them plus a cadet, one of which I sold to a friend and the remaining cadet and junior repose in my basement, probably never to be used again. I used the cadet and the juniors for more than 10 years.

The Max is, without any question whatsoever, a world class grinder as regards the grinds that it produces. I would rank it on the same level as the high end conicals. The junior, on the other hand, is a very sold, good, 64 mm planar grinder with nothing else particularly to recommend it.

You can get a brand new Max from Chris for $760.75, delivered. http://www.chriscoffee.com/products/hom ... /maxhybrid

A new Max is (in my view) worth at least 2x as much as a used Junior. So, if the Junior costs more than about $350, I'd consider it to be overpriced.

As regards the mods that the seller says he made, assuming they are as he has described them, they do not sound to be very important, although they may make it impossible for you to resell this grinder later, should you desire to do so.

ken

I have to say I really like my Junior quite a lot. Certainly more than a mazzer mini. I paid next to nothing for mine, but I would have no problems purchasing a used one (in good condition) for $350 (shipping included.) I think the important thing is that its a solid grinder that is consistent and can up your espresso game quite a bit. Would I pay $600 for a new one? Well, if the Max didn't exist then yes I would, because to get a grinder that was noticeably better you would have to pay quite a bit more (IMHO of course). But now, if you're in for $600 and you can pay $150 more and in the Max get a grinder that is significantly better, well, you'd be a nut to not wait another payday to dig up that extra $150. But a used one is different; having to come up with 300 or 400 dollars more to go from a used junior to a new max would certainly give many folks pause, especially in these interesting times. I don't see myself needing to upgrade from my junior for the foreseeable future. If I stumble across a mound of disposable income at some point in the future sure I'll pick up a sick conical grinder. But if I don't I won't lose any sleep. And you shouldn't either.