From now through July 30, you can bid on this Faema Faemina -- the bidding starts at €500 . . .

Not really much of a surprise. I think these are among the most collectible of home levers. When one considers a Cremina now fetches up to 1K...

PC

If you say so. Last one I saw sold for around 400 . . . dollars. This is 2x that amount.

There was a Faema lever not too long ago.... IIRC it sold for ~200. 500 pounds is a bit steep but who knows? There just might be someone in the UK/EU willing to pay that price.

There are a couple on ebay italy and ebay germany right now and whooo, first bid like 700 bucks, and they got it. Last week someone in Germany sold the portafilter separate from the machine and the total was around 600 euro! I agree with PC that is is on the cutting edge of collectibility, plus it has magic in the name. The pleated chrome body is totally "of the era" and is unmistakeable that it is vintage and way cool. There is no plastic and it is a very solid machine. but somehow I think that people think they are small club machines or something, like the early Gaggia levers or the Faema Urania. We like to think that it is the parts availability which is making the Faemina more desireable and that may be a factor, but not a double the price factor. It's a market blip and a matter of who's looking and who wants it badly enough.
The Faemina really is a good machine though it tends to get a little hot, as do many, but when you wrap your hand around that hard rubber bumpy grip handle and hold for the first drips of preinfusion, then release the handle for a very nice espresso, well, it can make sense. The little pigtail of a steam wand is a bit on the short side to actually do anything with, but ours has a unique water fill valve on the top which we have yet to hook up, but with a length of rubber hose it would work fine.
I agree, some steep prices here, but maybe the Gaggia Gilda owners need to fill in a space in their collections.

Doug

Hello Doug,

I don't know how you calibrated the temperature on your Faemina but I had no problems to steam milk in excellent latte art quality with my machine. The temperature on my machine is set to about 1.1 bar when both heating elements are on.

Concerning the price on the current auction: It is a little bit overpriced compared to other auction results at the present time. But about one year ago there was almost no Faemina sold for under 500 EUR. At the last months there were really many machines sold, which caused the prices to drop.

Cheers,
Oscar