I found a beautiful olympia rebrand pasquini livietta at a rummage sale - it appears to be hardly used!

With that, it is missing the portafilter and basket. On measurement it appears this uses the 54mm portafilter which from what I can gather is very difficult to source. Would anyone here have any advice for a newbie home brewer?

Similar has happened before. The last time I enjoyed such a story the person had gone back twice and rummaged some more, coming up with the missing parts. It's in these forum pages somewhere.

Check out this thread:

Bottomless Portafilter for Vintage Pasquini Livietta

Just out of curosity how much did you pay for it? I saw it but the rep didnt want to budge much on the price so i passed.

Stefanos espresso care carries a wide variety of portafilters and he might have it if you cantact him directly with exact model. The machine you have is i believe the olympia maximatica clone.

I've been desperately trying to locate a portafilter for a newly purchased '85 Livietta rebranded Olympia. I'm a noobie to this world and just invested in this machine without knowing how challenging it would be to source the PF.

The trouble I find is that nobody seems to know where I can source the correctly sized 54mm portafilter. Penney seems to no longer sell these sized PF's, and my trials through e-bay, craigslist, and web forums have turned out fruitless.

So I have two questions really:

1) Would anyone know of replacement PF for this machine? I've tried Orphan Espresso but am having difficulty in getting a response.
2) If there are truly none to be found, would it be logical to try and replace the grouphead to the 49mm variety so I can source the correct PF?

Any help you could provide me would definitely be appreciated!!

Intrepid- where you at the white elephant sale in Oakland?? If so, my mind is blown.

After some haggling I ended up getting the machine for $140 the last day of the sale. I'm new to the game but it seemed like a deal I could not pass up. Without the PF I recognize it was a gamble, but would love your thoughts on whether it was a good investment.

Yes I was there and saw it, however the asking price of $500 was absurd and the person I spoke with wouldn't go down that far. If it's in good shape and works, you got a good deal pending finding that portafilter.

I would give a call to Espresso Equipment Engineering in Livermore a call and see if they have a spare, they list pasquini machines on ebay refurbished occasionally.

Worse comes to worst you could break it down and sellit for parts. You could easily make back that $140 nowadays as parts have grown harder to come by. It would be sad, but better than a loss.

Alternatively, there are other 54mm groups out there, i don't know if anyone's tried fitting a foreign PF. Breville & La San Marco come to mind. Chances are if they fit we would have heard about it by now, but i figured i'd throw it out there. Maybe some kind soul could lend you one to try.

Thanks Howard and others, what a wonderful community you guys have fostered here!

Thanks for all the advice everyone! I've yet to track anything down, most people tell me to stalk Ebay so that's my option for the time being.

I do see that Breville has a 54mm PF for sale- curious as to whether I may be able to get one of these machined to fit? All this research and stalking will make it all the more wonderful when I pull the first shot off this beautiful vintage machine. Here's to hoping!

You could detach your group from your machine, which is easy. Then take it to someone who sells Breville and check the fit.