A bit of discussion about it is going on here:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=...6127299135As for Fiorenzato; long story short.
As explained by the Export Director at Quamar, back in the 40's, Mr Fiorenzato started a coffee grinder company. His two sons took over and they split. One of their daughter's husband is using the 'Fiorenzato' name because they have a right to use their last name in the company name, and this is their web site
http://fiorenzato.it/. 1st-line has been contacted by them and 1st-line has evaluated their grinders in Milan, Italy, but there is no business relationship at the time of this writing. Just a little tidbit that we are not sure of the validity - the engineers who left this 'original' company went on to work at Mazzer and Macap.
Of the original company, the T80 molds of the grinders were sold to another Fiorenzato company. This company was previously named Quamar by Fiorenzato. Due to the confusion, they recently changed their name to only Quamar. Web site is
http://quamar.com/. 1st-line now has a business relationship with Quamar after evaluating their grinders. Keep in mind that 1st-line does NOT stock parts for the former Fiorenzato T80 as this grinder is very old and we were advised that parts were different.
Finally, the name Fiorenzato was sold to the current Fiorenzato Macchine per Il Caffe. This company currently owns the rights to the Fiorenzato name in Italy with many entailing lawsuits, but the original company can use the name because of the last name rights. 1st-line was a distributor for their products through their previous USA office. This summer, 1st-line has become the importer for the USA.
I hope this clears things up....