I was posting this on yahoo gaggia, but I cant find anyway to post pics there, so I am just pasting it here too late to rewrite it....

Howdy;)

Well, I am sure I will be posting here numerous times in the months to come, so I thought I would make my official greeting. I picked up a Gaggia Classic and Gaggia MDF with 2 drawer base for 241. I thought it was a fantastic deal, but who really knows, you know? Share your thoughts, but if they are negative make sure you share them very gently! lol, already went through remorse on the Breville, at least that worked out. Man that was a beautiful machien though.


Here are some pics of my setup. I was wondering about the model. The guy seems to have given me some possibly bad info, or maybe it was just purchsed old after sitting for a while. He told me it was 04/05 didnt seem to remember. Later he said it was part of a wedding present....so....unless it was a December wedding...anyway, The bottom says 02/2003 for production.

Is this the newer model with newer features (I understand it was updated in 03) Which would make this polished stainless steel, or would this be one of the nickel plated versions? Anywhere here is my set up, either way I will be happy with it, but I was not sure what the new version entailed and if it might mean something different in terms of care of the exterior.

Nice setup at a fantastic price. I bought one for my parents last year. Make sure you descale it right away and I think a worthwhile upgrade is a Rancilio Silvia steam wand. On my parents' I never used that turbofrother thing and the steam arm is too short. I bought and installed the Silvia steamwand with help from this vid: It wasn't necessary for me to cut the Gaggia steam wand to remove nut. With a little elbow grease it slipped off. You DO need to do the sanding though. Good luck.

I just realized that's a Rancilio Silvia/Rocky base. Nice. I sold mine on Ebay a couple of weeks ago.

Looks great. Congratulations. Clean an descale it thoroughly, so that it serves you well.

Thanks for the vid on the steam wand. I will def. work on that upgrade as soon as i have some funds or find a really good deal. I am waiting on the descaling agent right now. I opened up the top and it is pristine inside not a single spot of rust, everything still shiny and looks brand new without any leaks, but man it needs bad descaling. I dont think the guy used it hardly at all, but I contacted him again to have a few questions answered and to see about his cleaning regiment... and he didnt even know what descaling was. lol...so...yea, even with very little use, 5 years of none is not great. Hopefully it will clean up well though! You think I need to run the descale and let it sit overnight? Or just run several rounds of it per instructions with several minutes of sitting?

On that note, I bought Urnex Cleancafe....that is the right stuff yea? They had a red box and a black box, but as far as I could tell they were the same, so i picked up a trip red box with free shipping. That should work right?

Thanks for the responses guys, its always good to hear good feedback.