After some inquiry here and with Doug at OE. I decided to take the plunge and take my chance on a manual wall grinder from ebay. Got it friday, dismantle everything, clean and reassemble. And I must say that it is amazing, I've read somewhere on this board that someone bought a D.E. grinder and when I saw this on the web I jump on it. I choke the cremina solid on my first attempt so I did go coarser and on my second it choke again, and my third again. This grinder is grinding as fine as one can imagine with a wide range of adjustment, at the finest I can take the coffee between my finger squeeze it and it will hold it shape forever!!!! And it grind quite fast too, under 50 stroke for sure. I took a chance and I got lucky.....just want to share this with you. I know that there was another one like it on ebay.....so if someone is looking for one it might be worth to consider......2 out of 3.

I have a PeDe wall mill and like it too. Very easy to use compared to a box mill. I go back and forth with my M. Major. Seems to keep a nice even density where the Major throws the grind into the doser and then plows it into the basket. At some point I'd like to make an adapter for the bottom to hold a basket with a slight collar. I can foresee it possibly replacing the Major once I get over the fact that such a simple mill could do so.

http://www.de.nl/OverDE/Geschiedenisent.../1753.aspx
^^

Douwe Egberts wrote:1937 - Zassenhaus koffiemolen

De populariteit van de DE-koffiemolens, de Zassenhaus is enorm. De molen verdween in 1968 uit het assortiment van Douwe Egberts. Desondanks gaan nog steeds veel Zassenhaus koffiemolens over de toonbank, hoewel Nederland al in de jaren zestig massaal overstapte op gemalen, vacuüm verpakte koffie. Nostalgische overwegingen spelen bij de huidige populariteit waarschijnlijk een hoofdrol.

translation by me wrote:1937- Zassenhaus coffee grinder

The popularity of the DE-coffeegrinders, the Zassenhaus is huge. The grinder disappeared in 1968 from the inventory of Douwe Egberts. Nevertheless, the Zassenhaus coffeegrinders are still in high demand, although Holland switched en-masse to preground vacuum packed coffee in the sixties. Nostalgic sentiments probably play a huge part in the present day popularity

Notice that:
-Douwe Egberts claims the brand name Zassenhaus.
-Douwe Egberts thinks that the grinder is sold purely for nostalgic reasons.

Anyway, you now also need some of these


Douwe Egberts' coffee sucks though.

An espresso-fine grind dose in 50 turns? Wow - I'm impressed.

I was discouraged from using my wall PeDe after tearing it down and restoring it, since it retains several grams of coffee in the grind chamber.

Does the DE retain much?

My guess is that D.E. and maybe some other hand grinder mfg's may have binned or sorted their burr sets. They may have saved some of the fastest sets for wall mount grinders due to the solid mounting and the better torque that the longer handle would allow. I have no way of proving this, and I wish that there was more access to the company records of the time to test this.

Strangely this may have been done because these burrs took to much torque to be used well in an hand or knee mill. The wall mill may have been a invention to use these otherwise way to fast sets of burrs.

It makes business sense, whether history backs it up or not is totally open.

-Cecil

Fantastic to read that these grinders made their way to your homes. DE is a well known coffee brand in The Netherlands. The factory is aprox 25 miles from my home in the northern parts of The Netherlands (Joure, province Friesland) When you bought the coffee you could collect "points". (cut out of the package the coffee was wrapped in) when you had enough points you could order coffee related stuff, such as this grinder.

Nice bit of back story and history. Any chance you have any scans of these bags or coupons?

-C

Those points still exist.
The cup i posted costs 390 points. You get 10 points for every half pound.

I inherited a countertop grinder from a relative that had been using it to grind peppercorns(!) but I've never read much about wall grinders, let alone see a picture of one like this. Very cool indeed!

CRCasey wrote:Nice bit of back story and history. Any chance you have any scans of these bags or coupons?

-C

Some more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douwe_Egberts
http://images.google.nl/images?hl=nl&um=1&sa=1&q=douwe+egberts+punten&btnG=Zoeken&aq=f&oq=&start=0